PIERRE    VINTON 


PIERRE  VINTON 

THE  ADVENTURES 
OF  A  SUPERFLUOUS  HUSBAND 


BY 
EDWARD  C.  VENABLE 


NEW   YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1915 


Copyright,  1914,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Song 

Published  October,  1914 
Second  Impression,  March  16,  1915 

Third  Impression,  May  29,  1915 
Fourth  Impression,  September  23,  1915 


THIS  BOOK  IS  AFFECTIONATELY 
DEDICATED  TO 

C.   P.   B. 

THE  HEADMASTER  OF  DE  LANCEY  SCHOOL 

BY 
A  SORT  OF  PUPIL 


2138769 


BOOK    I 


\Y  HAT  a  vast  difference  there  is  between  an  empty 
teacup  and  an  emptied  teacup.  To  have  no  longer  any 
place  in  the  Tray  of  Things,  to  be  a  little  soiled  by  use, 
and,  with  a  little  of  the  sweetness  of  the  Past  in  the 
depths  of  you,  to  belong  only  to  the  Out-of-the-Way, 
is,  as  I  see  it,  to  be  an  emptied  teacup.  And  I  can  think 
of  nothing  else  I  so  closely  resemble  at  this  hour. 

When  Marcella  first  spoke  of  divorce  she  referred, 
I  remember,  to  "fetters."  It  is  curious  that  the  same 
circumstance  should  make  me  think  of  teacups.  It  is 
probably  another  instance  of  the  incompatibility  be- 
tween Marcella  and  me,  which,  they  say,  is  the  cause 
of  the  whole  matter.  Of  course,  we  must  be  incompati- 
ble. The  fact  that  we  spent  two  years  and  a  great  deal 
of  money  getting  rid  of  each  other  proves  that.  We 
could  scarcely  give  further  proof,  I  think,  unless  we 
^committed  murder.  We  did  not  resort  to  any  extreme, 

3 


PIERRE    VINTON 

,A 

however.  We  simply  called  the  attention  of  the  Law 
of  the  Land  to  our  incompatibility  and  asked  for  a 
remedy. 

In  fact,  we  have  been  congratulated  on  our  behavior. 
At  least,  I  have;  and  I  suppose  Marcella  has  also.  One 
person  described  the  divorce  as  "refined."  I  asked 
Lilly  Axson  what  a  refined  divorce  was.  She  explained 
it  as  meaning  that  "nothing  horrid"  had  been  divulged. 
"You  were  tired  of  Marcella,  and  she  was  tired  of  you, 
and  that  was  all  there  was  to  it,"  explained  Lilly. 

I  am  afraid  there  isn't  even  that  much  to  it.  I  am  not 
at  all  sure  that  I  am  tired  of  Marcella.  That  Marcella 
was  tired  of  me  is  indisputable,  and,  of  course,  I  did 
not  try  to  prove  to  her  that  she  was  not.  She  wrote  me 
a  letter  when  I  did  not  oppose  her  suit  and  thanked 
me.  She  apparently  thought  I  had  acted  like  a  gentle- 
man. Every  one  else  seems  to  think  it,  too.  Indeed,  the 
only  person  who  is  not  satisfied  completely  with  the 
whole  affair  is  myself.  I,  however,  believe  that  I  was 
not  tired  of  Marcella.  It  is  this  fact  alone  that  makes 
me  say  that  my  marriage  was  a  failure.  We  were  cer- 
tainly happy  for  three  years,  only  mildly  discontented 
for  two;  then  we  separated,  and  now  we  are  divorced. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  Marcella  who  is  satisfied 

4 


PIERRE    VINTON 

with  the  divorce,  the  marriage  should  be  called  a  tre- 
mendous success.  It  is  only  from  my  point  of  view 
that  it  can  be  called  a  failure. 

I  cannot  even  describe  my  own  condition  as  miser- 
able. Perhaps  I  should  say  I  am  profoundly  bored. 
Matrimony  is  really  an  absorbing  occupation.  The 
office  required  a  great  deal  of  attention,  for  Marcella 
could  spend  more  money  innocently  than  any  man 

who  has  ever  lived.  In  extenuation,  if  it  is  a  fault  in  a 

i 

pretty  woman  to  spend  money,  I  can  say  I  have  never 

seen  her  badly  dressed — not  even  when  she  had  measles. 
But  I  have  largely  given  up  the  office.  I  have  enough 
money  for  my  own  use  without  its  assistance.  More 
than  enough,  perhaps,  for  I  haven't  Marcella's  gift 
for  spending  money  innocently.  Besides  the  office  I 
had  innumerable  other  conjugal  duties  more  directly 
connected  with  Marcella,  taking  her  where  she  wanted 
to  be  seen  with  a  husband  and  keeping  her  from  places 
where  she  should  not  be  seen  at  all.  Altogether,  run- 
ning Marcella  required  an  immense  amount  of  thought 
and  energy;  it  is  mortifying  to  think  how  much,  now 
when  it  has  all  proved  useless. 

That  is  always  the  end  of  any  rational  researches  I 
make  into  the  matter — that  the  marriage  was  a  failure, 

5 


PIERRE    VINTON 

that  I  am  an  emptied  teacup,  and  that  Marcella  will 
probably  marry  somebody  else.  I  invariably  issue  from 
the  maze  at  that  exit,  but  I  can  never  find  the  beginning 
of  the  path — I  mean,  the  cause  of  the  failure.  Even  the 
true  hah*  of  Lilly  Axson's  statement,  that  Marcella  was 
tired  of  me,  so  utterly  fatigued  that  she  preferred  kick- 
ing up  all  this  row  to  going  on  living  with  me,  is  only 
an  effect.  But  Mrs.  Axson  refused  to  go  any  deeper. 
She  said  she  wasn't  a  "Dope  Doctor,"  which  is  her 
rather  expressive  way  of  stating  her  dislike  of  psy- 
chology. 

I  had  rather  hoped  the  Reverend  Bertrand  Wither- 
spoon  would  go  deeper.  He  married  us  and  wrote  each 
of  us  a  letter  of  condolence  when  the  decree  was  pub- 
lished. That  was  a  little  more  discerning  than  most 
people,  at  any  rate,  although  my  letter  was  a  very 
guarded  admission  of  the  existence  of  any  cause  for 
itself.  Still,  he  evidently  did  not  regard  the  divorce  as 
a  successful  coup,  accomplished  in  a  genteel  manner. 
I  went  to  see  him  and  asked  him  the  question  I  had 
asked  Mrs.  Axson.  He  said  our  marriage  had  lacked 
spirituality. 

"Your  pleasure,  your  aims,  your  ambitions,"  he  said, 
"what  were  they?  Purely  material,  you  admit  of 

6 


PIERRE    VINTON 

your  own  accord.  Can  such  pleasure,  such  ambitions, 
my  dear  friend,  ever  truly  form  a  band  of  union  be- 
tween two  souls?  Do  they  cultivate  the  qualities  that 
make  for  union,  unselfishness,  broad-mindedness,  ideal- 
ism? Do  they  not,  on  the  contrary,  cultivate  the  op- 
posite qualities — selfishness,  pettiness,  materialism — the 
qualities  of  discord  and  strife?" 

The  rectory  of  Saint  Stephen's  is  the  gloomiest  house 
in  America.  The  architecture  is  Gothic,  to  match  the 
church,  and  the  windows  are  slits,  through  which  a 
man-at-arms  might,  if  he  were  a  good  shot,  have  dis- 
charged a  crossbow  five  hundred  years  ago  in  another 
hemisphere.  The  Reverend  Bertrand  Witherspoon,  with 
his  long  black  coat,  his  heavy  gold  cross,  and  his  neatly 
trimmed  "side  burns,"  was  impressive  in  the  high, 
gloomy,  narrow  room  of  fine  acoustic  properties.  It 
occurred  to  me  that  he  had  done  what  the  window's 
shape  suggested,  shot  at  me  with  a  weapon  of  another 
era  and  another  hemisphere.  I  was  a  little  stunned  by 
the  discharge,  still  I  felt  that  he  wasn't  quite  fair  to 
either  of  us.  It  was  greatly  to  my  personal  advantage 
to  keep  Marcella  from  leaving  me,  as  I've  shown,  and 
it  was  equally  to  Marcella's  similar  advantage  to  stay 
with  me  because  I  am  rich  and  Marcella  hasn't_a 

7 


PIERRE    VINTON 

penny  in  the  world  and  refuses  alimony.  But  I  didn't 
reveal  these  facts  to  the  Reverend  Bertrand.  I  felt  that 
he  would  only  look  over  the  arsenal  and  hit  me  with  a 
missile  of  a  slightly  different  date. 

"I  greatly  appreciate  your  coming  to  me,*'  he  said 
as  I  rose  from  the  mediaeval  chair  and  took  my  hat 
from  the  refectory  table  of  a  fifteenth-century  mon- 
astery. "It  is  the  highest  privilege  of  my  order  to 
bring  assistance  in  the  daily  ordering  of  private  life." 

I  thanked  him.  After  all,  he  may  truly  believe  that 
he  has  brought  "assistance." 

A  few  blocks  above  Saint  Stephen's  I  met  Mrs. 
Axson,  who  drove  me  up-town.  Even  Mrs.  Axson's 
men  friends  admit  that  she  is  modern.  After  Saint 
Stephen's  rectory  she  seemed  prophetic.  I  told  her 
where  I  had  been. 

"And  what  did  he  tell  you?"  asked  Mrs.  Axson. 

"He  divided  two  thousand  syllables  by  five  hundred 
words,"  I  answered. 

"And  what's  the  dividend?" 

"That  I  am  a  narrow-minded,  selfish  materialist." 

"Poor  Marcella!"  sighed  Mrs.  Axson. 

"But  Marcella  is  just  as  bad,"  I  added. 

This  silenced  Mrs.  Axson.  I  judged  by  theexpres- 

8 


PIERRE    VINTON 

sion  of  her  face  that  she  was  thinking  of  Father  With- 
erspoon. 

"It  isn't  entirely  his  fault,"  I  suggested.  "It's  partly 
the  architecture." 

"You  mean  the  Church?"  she  said. 

"I  don't,"  I  disclaimed.  I  did  not.  I  rent  a  pew  at 
Saint  Stephen's. 

She  dropped  me  at  the  corner  of  my  side  street. 

"Who  are  you  going  to  ask  now?"  she  said,  leaning 
in  the  window  of  the  car  and  surveying  me  with  an 
indulgent  smile.  She  often  does  this.  I  have  heard  her 
express  the  opinion  that  I  am  "hah*  cracked." 

"I  think  I  shall  go  to  Mrs.  Malory."  I  had  not 
thought  of  Mrs.  Malory,  but  I  felt  compelled  to  deserve 
the  indulgent  smile. 

"I  know  exactly  what  she  will  tell  you,"  answered 
Mrs.  Axson. 

"What?"  I  asked. 

"That  you  ought  to  have  had  a  baby.*' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  that  is  exactly  what  Mrs.  Malory 
did  tell  me.  I  was  rather  surprised  at  her  frankness, 
but  I  have  noticed  that  there  is  nothing  the  average 
mother  is  so  immodest  about  as  motherhood.  (I  have 
heard  them  talk  to  Marcella  until  her  face  burned. 

0 


PIERRE    VINTON 

She  was  very  shy  in  such  matters.)  And  Mrs.  Malory 
is  an  average  mother.  She  has  three  children,  who  come 
in  for  cakes  at  tea  and  make  curtsies  to  everybody  in 
the  room.  When  they  had  come  and  curtsied  and  gone 
and  she  and  I  were  alone  I  asked  Mrs.  Malory  what 
I  had  asked  Father  Witherspoon  and  Mrs.  Axson. 

"Mrs.  Malory,"  I  said  bluntly,  "do  you  think  that 
I  am  capable  of  making  any  woman  happy?" 

She  looked  at  me  very  sternly  and  put  down  her 
work-bag.  "Does  this  mean,"  she  demanded,  "that 
you  are  thinking  of  being  married  ? " 

"No,"  I  explained.  "I  am  thinking  of  being  divorced." 

"But,"  she  insisted,  "you  are  divorced." 

"Yes,  that  is  what  I  am  thinking  of.  If  I  could 
make  any  woman  happy,  I  would  have  made  Marcella 
so,  because  I  could  never  try  so  hard  for  any  woman 
as  I  did  for  Marcella." 

Mrs.  Malory  took  up  her  work  again  and  started  to 
sew.  "It  is  none  of  my  business,"  she  began  after  a 
pause,  during  which  I  balanced  expectantly  on  the 
edge  of  the  couch. 

"But  it  is  your  business,"  I  pointed  out,  "because 
I  asked  you." 

"But  it  is  such  a  queer  thing  to  say,"  she  expostu- 
10 


PIERRE    VINTON 

lated,  and  blushed  slightly.  I  understood  then  that 
Mrs.  Axson  had  prophesied  truly,  but  I  listened  to 
Mrs.  Malory  and  thanked  her  warmly.  When  I  took 
my  leave  she  held  up  something  out  of  the  work-bag 
for  me  to  look  at.  It  was  bifurcated.  "They  are 
Joan's,"  she  explained. 

Joan  is  the  youngest  and  is  named  for  her.  In  some 
ways  Mrs.  Malory  is  the  most  shameless  mother  I 
know. 

I  cannot,  after  truly  impartial  reflection,  be  con- 
vinced that  Mrs.  Malory  has  come  any  nearer  the 
heart  of  the  matter  than  the  Reverend  Bertrand  Wither- 
spoon.  I  want  to  know  why,  wanting  Marcella  and 
having  had  her,  I  have  her  no  longer,  and  I  do  not  see 
that  children  explain  any  more  than  materialism. 
Marcella  didn't  want  children,  and  to  me  that  settled 
the  question.  I  thought  she  ought  to  have  control  of  the 
matter  because  she  would  have  to  have  the  children. 
And  even  after  seeing  Joan's  underclothes,  I  still  think 
so.  I  was  fairly  indifferent.  I  didn't  wish  to  adopt  news- 
boys, and  yet  I  think  children  are  rather  jolly  between 
whiles.  Would  it  be  just  to  let  that  predilection  out- 
weigh Marcella's  agony  and  a  year  of  Marcella's  lif e  ? 
Mrs.  Malory  thinks  so.  I  fancy  Witherspoon  would 

11 


PIERRE    VINTON 

agree  with  her.  Perhaps  they  don't  include  in  their 
calculations  that  at  the  time  of  the  debate  I  was  in 
love  with  Marcella  and  would  probably  have  under- 
gone a  capital  operation  rather  than  have  had  her 
finger  squeezed  hard  twice.  Anyhow,  it  is  impossible, 
among  the  educated  classes,  to  discuss  motherhood. 
With  them  is  it  either  a  joke  or  a  fetich.  It  is  a  joke 
with  Mrs.  Axson.  It  is  a  fetich  with  Mrs.  Malory. 
Houston  Street  looks  the  matter  squarely  in  the  face, 
and  I  think  Houston  Street  would  call  down  blessings 
on  my  head. 

The  truth  of  it  is  Mrs.  Malory  and  the  Reverend 
Bertrand  are  primarily  wrong.  They  have  gone  deep 
enough,  Heaven  knows,  but  they  have  bored  in  the 
wrong  place.  He  probed  an  example  of  matrimony, 
and  she  Marcella,  and  it  is  in  me  the  secret  lies.  I  am 
not  fault  finding  with  divorce.  I  believe  divorce  is  an 
excellent  institution.  I  also  approve  of  matrimony  and 
of  Marcella.  It  is  I  who  have  failed.  A  man,  it  seems  to 
me,  should,  above  all  things,  keep  his  wife  if  he  wants 
her.  I  have  lost  mine,  and  I  believe  I  have  failed, 
failed  above  all  things,  failed  as  a  man  in  the  essential 
of  manhood,  and  as  a  human  being  in  the  necessity  of 
humanity.  I  may  marry  again,  I  may  even  care  for 

12 


PIERRE    VINTON 

another  woman,  but  Marcella  was  my  mate.  Nature 
intended  me  to  keep  Marcella,  and  I  have  done  less 
than  Nature  intended  me  to  do.  That,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  to  fail  completely.  For  I  do  not  think  Nature  intended 
any  of  us  to  do  very  much;  to  eat,  and  drink,  and  sleep, 
and  mate  are  all  she  demands.  When  we  have  eaten  and 
drunk  and  slept  and  mated,  then  supernature  takes 
charge  over  us. 

I  remember  that  at  the  time  of  my  marriage  I  was 
generally  considered  to  be  in  love,  rather  too  much  so 
for  my  dignity's  sake,  some  of  my  friends  thought.  (I 
was  twenty-four  at  the  time.)  And  it  is  useless  to  deny 
my  suspicion  that  I  still  am.  This  must  knock  my  dig- 
nity into  a  cocked  hat,  for  if  it  is  infra  dig  for  an  en- 
gaged man  to  be  in  love  with  his  fiancee,  it  can  be  little 
short  of  farcical  for  a  divorced  man  to  be  in  love  with 
his  ex-wife.  This  is  very  queer,  for  I  am  quite  sure  that 
the  only  emotion  that  can  ever  lif t  me  higher  will  be 
a  love  of  God,  and  it  is  improbable  that  ever  will,  for 
I  don't  know  anything  about  a  love  of  God.  I  am  a 
Protestant,  and  Protestantism  is  so  greatly  a  matter 
of  behavior,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  love  of 
God.  No,  that  is  not  yet  for  me  in  the  world.  But  there 
are  lesser  heights  that  may  be  won.  Passing  over 

13 


PIERRE    VINTON 

these,  we  may  come  beyond  them  to  the  other.  And  it 
was  through  love  of  Marcella  my  path  led,  and  that 
path  has  been  stopped  for  me  by  the  Supreme  Court. 
Sometimes,  as  at  the  present  moment,  I  should  like 
to  spank  the  Supreme  Court. 


II 

"  Vr  HAT,"  asks  Saint-Simon,  apropos  of  a  banished 
friend,  "what  is  there  to  meddle  with  in  Genoa?" 

That  is  really  a  very  important  question  concerning 
any  place.  It  is  peculiarly  important  to  me  just  now 
about  New  York.  The  only  thing  I  have  found  to  med- 
dle with  in  New  York  is  Courtland  Brown.  There  are 
undoubtedly  hundreds  of  human  beings  among  these 
five  millions  or  more  fellow  townsmen  of  mine  who 
deserve  and  would  welcome  meddling.  Courtland 
Brown  doesn't  do  either.  He  is  a  drunken  bankrupt,  who 
has  never  passed  a  day  in  honest  labor  since  his  birth, 
and  who  consents  to  live  in  my  house  because  it  costs 
him  nothing,  as  he  told  me  himself  once  when  he  de- 
tected, I  suppose,  that  I  was  growing  vain  of  his  prefer- 
ence. Yet,  such  as  he  is,  he  appeals  to  my  perverted 
philanthropy.  I  suppose  one  explanation  is  that  I  have 
always  known  him.  Another  may  be  that  his  degrada- 
tion was  continually  in  my  sight.  My  philanthropy, 
apparently,  is  of  the  short-sighted  sort,  to  specify  one 
of  its  infirmities. 

15 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Brown  reminds  me  forcibly  of  a  poor  fellow  I  saw 
hurt  in  a  football  game,  lying  on  the  side-lines  with 
several  substitutes  sitting  on  him,  raving  and  strug- 
gling, giving  signals,  still  playing  the  game,  as  it  were, 
in  his  delirium.  Courty,  too,  has  been  playing  the  game 
in  delirium.  He  used  to  be  a  cotton  broker  and  got 
badly  injured.  He  thought  it  was  going  to  be  a  dry 
June,  whereas  June  turned  out  to  be  uncommonly  wet, 
or  something  of  the  sort,  and  he  lost  his  money.  (He 
tells  me  the  story  so  frequently  that  for  his  sake  I  try 
to  forget  as  much  as  possible  of  it  between  whiles.)  Of 
course,  after  losing  his  money,  he  ceased  to  be  cotton 
broker  in  reality,  but  in  his  delirium  he  failed  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  and  went  on  with  the  motions  of  playing 
the  game,  watching  at  the  ticker  and  drinking,  drink- 
ing disreputably.  Now,  I  have  got  him  to  the  side- 
lines, and  I  am  sitting  on  him  as  the  substitutes  sat 
on  the  injured  athlete.  He  struggles  mightily,  but  so 
far  I  am  still  on  top. 

He  is  quite  inaccessible,  I  am  afraid,  to  moral  per- 
suasion. If  he  were  married,  or  even  had  an  aged  par- 
ent, I  might  succeed  better,  but  the  only  assistance  of 
this  kind  I  can  discover  is  an  aunt  in  Duluth,  and  she 
is  quite  useless  as  a  stimulant  of  her  nephew's  con- 

16 


PIERRE    VINTON 

science,  and  I  had  to  try  appealing  to  his  higher  self, 
a  senseless  phrase  I  must  have  picked  out  of  a  maga- 
zine. The  discussion  of  this  higher  self  grew  slightly 
psychological,  and  he  asked  me  what  happened  to  the 
higher  self  when  he  got  drunk  ?  There  I  faced  a  rather 
disagreeable  dilemma,  for  I  couldn't  very  well  represent 
my  single  ally  as  his  boon  companion  on  sprees,  yet, 
if  I  explained  that  the  sublimated  ego  remained  sober 
on  these  occasions,  he  would  probably  have  ruled  that 
person  out  of  the  discussion  as  an  unconcerned  spec- 
tator. I  let  the  discussion  fall  silent  and  there  was  no 
good  achieved,  which  doesn't  surprise  me  very  much. 
The  problem  seems  to  me  a  much  simpler  one  than 
that  of  spiritual  intoxication.  If  I  can  keep  Courty 
sober  for  a  month  or  two  and  then  get  him  some  work 
in  the  office,  he  may  pull  through  yet.  To  keep  him 
sober  it  is  necessary  to  keep  him  away  from  alcohol. 
He  has  about  as  much  will-power  as  a  weeping  willow. 
I  first  thought  of  locking  him  up  in  the  house,  but,  as 
he  himself  pointed  out,  no  one  can  turn  a  residence  in 
Fifty-third  Street  into  a  Bastile  by  means  of  a  latch- 
key. He  is  mildly  interested  in  his  own  conversion, 
though  apparently  quite  hopeless  of  its  consummation. 
But  I  have  solved  this  problem  finally,  and  rather 

17 


PIERRE    VINTON 

neatly,  I  think.  It  is  curious  how  these  matters  sim- 
plify if  you  go  about  them  without  advice.  The  solu- 
tion was  suggested  to  me  by  the  key  of  a  motor-car. 
I  saw  a  man  slip  the  key  of  his  car  into  his  waistcoat 
pocket  and  walk  off,  leaving  the  car  an  inert,  helpless 
mass.  The  key  of  locomotion  was  removed.  A  pair  of 
horses  was  necessary  to  move  the  thing.  It  occurred  to 
me  that  what  the  man  had  done  to  his  motor-car  was 
precisely  the  sort  of  thing  I  wanted  to  do  to  Court- 
land  Brown.  I  could  only  keep  Courty  in  the  house  by 
removing  his  key  of  locomotion.  It  is  easily  enough  seen 
that  the  key  of  masculine  locomotion  in  civilized  com- 
munities is  trousers.  I  removed  Courty's  trousers,  and 
I  made  Habliston,  the  butler,  lock  up  mine  and  his 
own,  except  those  in  actual  use.  Courty  has  a  dressing- 
gown  which  does  very  well  for  the  house.  If  he  were  to 
get  out  he  would  unquestionably  be  arrested  within 
half  a  block,  and  as  his  only  excuse  would  be  that  he 
was  going  for  a  drink,  he  would  probably  get  a  long 
term  in  jail,  which  might  be  the  best  thing  for  him. 
He  is  even  more  securely  tied  than  the  motor-car.  I 
don't  believe  a  pair  of  horses  could  get  him  down  the 
street. 

All  this  would  produce  inextinguishable  laughter  at 
18 


iPIERRE    VINTON 

the  club,  where  Courty's  popularity  was  due  to  his  wit. 
He  used  to  laugh  at  nearly  everything  in  the  world. 
Now  the  jest  is  pointed  against  the  scoffer,  but  it  seems 
to  me  a  very  bitter  repartee  that  even  the  salvation  of 
his  soul  should  be  turned  into  a  sort  of  low  comedy 
farce. 

He  said  that  of  himself  to-night,  sitting  across  the 
fireplace  here.  It  is  a  bitter  thing  for  a  man  to  say  of 
himself.  He  went  away  immediately  afterward,  and  I 
saw  by  the  twitching  of  his  fingers  that  every  little 
nerve  in  his  body  was  asking  for  whiskey,  and  that  the 
blue  flannel  dressing-gown  was  flopping  around  his 
long  legs. 

I  can't  deny  him  either  the  humor  or  the  bitterness 
of  the  thing,  still  I  fancy  every  one  at  some  time  hears 
a  tinkle  of  the  "Laughter  of  the  Gods"  which  I  used 
to  construe  so  painfully  at  school.  There  is  another 
witticism  being  enacted  in  this  house.  Courtland 
Brown  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  It  is  between  Hablis- 
ton,  the  butler,  and  me.  He  is  a  fat,  bald,  solemn, 
little  man,  the  shortest  butler  I  have  ever  seen,  and  a 
tremendous  conservative.  When  Marcella  went  away, 
I  moved  out  of  my  accustomed  room  to  the  one  over 
the  front  door,  and  I  have  been  trying  to  live  there 

19 


PIERRE    VINTON 

ever  since.  Habliston,  silently  and  efficiently,  for  some 
reason,  refuses  to  recognize  the  rearrangement.  He  has 
given,  somehow,  an  air  of  transiency  to  the  room,  so 
I  feel  exactly  as  though  I  were  spending  a  few  days 
at  an  hotel.  There  is  a  trunk,  for  example,  in  one  corner. 
He  says  this  is  necessary  because  of  the  scarcity  of 
presses.  I  don't  believe  him,  but  he  knows  infinitely 
more  about  the  matter  than  I  do  and  triumphs  in 
every  argument.  For  some  other  reason,  I  can  have 
only  small,  straight-backed  chairs.  In  the  end,  I  sup- 
pose, he  will  have  his  way  and  I  shall  be  moved  back 
where  I  came  from.  There  are  four  other  rooms  I 
might  use,  but  I  am  sure  he  will  be  content  with  no 
other.  Meanwhile,  Marcella  is  occupying  her  Uncle 
Fred's  one  spare  bedroom  at  Babylon. 

This  is  the  big  and  the  little  of  Fate's  jest  with 
Pierre  Vinton,  householder.  It  does  not,  however, 
cause  me  inextinguishable  laughter. 

Shortly  before  I  was  married  Mrs.  Axson  gave  me 
a  pocketbook,  in  which  were  two  letters,  and,  although 
I  lost  the  pocketbook  long  ago,  I  have  kept  the  letters. 
I  don't  believe  the  writer  of  them  ever  knew  I  had 
them.  I  remember  once  quoting  to  her  from  one  of  them 

20 


PIERRE    VINTON 

a  sentiment  concerning  a  Miss  Butcher,  and  she  appar- 
ently had  no  recollection  of  it  at  all.  Thereafter,  I  never 
mentioned  the  matter.  I  can  remember  the  circum- 
stances of  the  first  letter  very  well.  Marcella  was  eight- 
een and  I  was  twenty-one,  and  Goshen  is  in  New 
Hampshire. 

"  GOSHEN. 
"DEAREST  LILL: 

"I  do  wish  you  were  going  to  come  back  in  Septem- 
ber, so  you  could  be  one  of  Mae  Tenafly's  bridesmaids. 
She  is  awfully  cut  up  because  you  can't,  and  so  am  I. 
The  dresses  are  going  to  be  yellow — your  color. 

"This  house-party  is  a  howling  success.  We  play 
tennis,  swim  a  lot,  and  sail  a  little,  only  the  sailboat  is 
a  frightful  old  tub,  and  nobody  likes  it  very  much. 
There  is  a  friend  of  yours  here,  that  Pierre  Vinton, 
who  used  to  live  next  you  in  the  country.  You  know 
his  mother  has  just  died,  too,  and  he  is  living  all  alone 
with  an  aunt,  who  is  an  awful  snob,  Mrs.  Butler  says. 
So  he  is  going  to  spend  the  summer  here.  He  is  a  great 
friend  of  Ted's,  and  they  are  going  to  have  rooms  to- 
gether at  Cambridge  next  year. 

"I  don't  think  he  is  very  good-looking,  but  he  has 
awfully  nice  teeth.  I  think  that  fat  Elsie  Butcher  is 

21 


PIERRE    VINTON 

trying  to  catch  him,  because  he  has  lots  of  money. 
She  is  very  mercenary,  I  think,  and  not  a  bit  attrac- 
tive. She  never  lets  him  go  for  a  minute.  He  seems  to 
like  her  rather,  but  I  don't  believe  he  could  have  any 

respect  for  her. 

"Lots  of  love, 

"Devotedly, 

"MARCELLA. 

"P.  S.  I  had  to  break  off  quick  like  that,  because  Mr. 
Vinton  came  up  and  made  me  talk  to  him.  He  talks 
about  you  all  the  time.  I  bet  he  used  to  be  awfully 
epris  with  you.  I  hope  I  have  not  said  anything  mean 
about  him. 

"Did  I  tell  you  Mae's  wedding  is  going  to  be  yellow  ? 
Do  try  to  make  the  family  come  over  for  it.  Mr.  Vin- 
ton says  so  too." 

How  vividly  that  letter  recalls  Marcella.  She  was  a 
scant  eighteen  years  that  summer,  little  more  than  a 
schoolgirl,  and  as  brown  as  an  autumn  leaf — brown- 
haired,  brown-eyed,  brown-skinned — sun-stained  as  an 
Indian.  All  of  us  lived  as  much  in  the  lake  as  on  the 
shores,  but  Marcella,  I  think,  rather  more.  She  used 
to  wear  a  khaki  skirt  and  a  big,  soft-brimmed  Panama 


PIERRE    VINTON 

hat  when  she  was  out  of  the  water,  and  a  black  silk 
bathing  suit  and  a  red  silk  handkerchief  when  she  was 
in  it.  At  least,  that  was  the  programme  of  the  toilet, 
I  believe.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  wore  either  indiffer- 
ently, and,  strange  to  say,  neither  was  becoming  to  her. 
It  was  not  until  I  saw  her  in  town  in  the  autumn  that 
I  realized  how  pretty  she  was.  It  was  on  a  Sunday  in 
October,  when  I  walked  to  church  with  her  down  on 
Long  Island,  when  she  wore  a  big  yellow  hat. 

But,  no  matter.  This  is  rambling,  and  I  had  best 
stick  to  the  lake.  Only,  how  these  little  things  come 
back! 

She  could  beat  me  at  swimming,  also  at  paddling  a 
canoe,  I  remember;  both  mortifications  I  shall  never 
outlive.  We  used  to  go  swimming  together  before 
breakfast.  It  was  so  our  peculiar  intimacy  began  with 
those  before-breakfast  baths  in  ice-cold  blue  waters. 
We  always  felt  we  had,  in  more  ways  than  one,  got 
a  start  on  the  others  by  the  time  we  broke  eggs  next 
one  another  at  breakfast.  She  had  always  to  wake  me 
for  those  plunges,  rapping  at  my  door  and  then  open- 
ing it  a  trifle  and  tossing  in  my  bathing  clothes,  which 
hung  on  the  porch  overnight  to  dry.  Then  I  could  hear 
her  outside  whistling  while  I  got  into  them. 

23 


PIERRE    VINTON 

It  was  the  frankest,  freest,  most  innocent  friendship 
a  boy  and  girl  ever  played  through  up  to  love,  and  it 
was  Marcella  who  made  it  that  way.  I  would  not  so 
much  call  her  innocent  as  uninterested  in  everything 
except  what  was  healthy  and  clean  and  out-of-doors. 
One  tiny  incident  gave  me  a  vision  of  her  that  I  can 
never  forget.  She  was  reading  that  summer  "Henry 
Esmond."  It  was  a  trick  of  hers  to  pick  out  some  long, 
discursive  tale  and  ponder  over  it  for  months  at  a 
time.  She  was  reading  "Henry  Esmond"  when  we 
met,  and  she  had  not  finished  it  when  we  married. 
One  afternoon,  lying  in  a  hammock  on  the  porch,  she 
looked  up  at  me  from  the  page  and  asked:  "What  is 
a  bar  sinister?" 

I  remember  I  was  embarrassed,  and  tried  to  explain, 
and  succeeded  very  badly  but  sufficiently  to  give  her 
at  least  an  idea  of  the  phrase's  meaning.  She  only  nodded 
for  an  answer  and  went  on  with  the  story. 

It  was  more  than  two  years  later,  when  we  were  mar- 
ried, and  she  was  still  reading  "Henry  Esmond."  Once 
again  she  looked  up  from  the  page,  probably  the  same 
page,  and  asked  me:  "Pierre,  what  is  a  bar  sinister?" 

I  have  known  innocent  women  and  pure  women,  a 
plenty  of  both,  but  I  have  never  known  another  for 

24 


PIERRE    VINTON 

whom  a  suggestion  of  that  sort  would  have  been  quite 
lost,  in  whose  mind  it  would  not  have  found  some  little 
crevice  to  cling  to,  some  little  store  of  curiosity  to  feed 
upon.  But  there  was  no  such  place  of  nourishment  in 
her  consciousness.  It  is  a  minutely  unimportant  hap- 
pening, but  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  tremendously 
significant  one. 
This  is  the  second  letter: 

"BABYLON. 

"Yes,  my  dear,  it  is  true.  I  told  him  to  cable  you. 

"I  don't  wonder  you  were  surprised.  It  was  awfully 
quick.  I  didn't  want  it  to  be  so  quick.  I  had  made  up 
my  mind,  if  he  did  say  anything,  that  I  would  turn 
him  down  hard,  but  I  didn't.  Oh,  Lilly,  I  am  an  awfully 
soft  sort  of  person,  after  all,  I  am  afraid.  I  am  afraid 
of  all  sorts  of  things  these  days.  I  am  terribly  afraid, 
not  of  him  exactly,  but  for  him.  Maybe,  though,  I  am 
afraid  for  me.  I  don't  know  what  it  is  really.  I  am  just 
afraid,  I  suppose. 

"What  little  liars  we  were,  Lilly,  when  we  used  to 
say  that  we  didn't  want  to  be  married,  only  we  sup- 
posed we  must,  or  every  one  would  think  us  frumps.  At 
least,  I  was  a  liar,  and  I  suppose  you  were,  too.  And 

25 


PIERRE    VINTON 

that  scared  me,  too.  Isn't  it  queer?  I  was  never  so 
happy  and  never  so  scared  before  in  all  my  life. 

"I  am  sure  of  one  thing,  though.  I  care.  I  knew  that 
before  I  knew  about  him.  It  was  up  at  Goshen.  He  had 
gone  away  for  two  days'  fishing,  and  all  the  second  day, 
before  he  came  back,  I  couldn't  keep  his  name  out  of 
my  mind.  Lilly,  my  dear,  I  went  around  that  whole 
blessed  day,  saying  to  myself,  *  Peter,  Peter,  Peter,' 
like  a  quail  whistling.  And  that  night  when  I  went  to 
bed  I  didn't  go  to  sleep  for  a  long  time.  I  got  up  and 
sat  at  the  window.  I  didn't  think  of  him  only,  or  of 
anything  particularly.  But  suddenly  I  said  to  myself, 
right  out  of  nothing:  'You  love  him.' 

"I  was  so  scared,  I  dropped  down  on  my  knees,  and 
said  out  loud,  'Oh,  God!  Oh,  God!'  and  that  woke 
up  Mae,  and  she  asked  me  what  was  the  matter,  and 
I  said,  'Nothing.'  Wasn't  it  awful  to  tell  a  lie  like  that 
on  my  knees,  praying  ?  But  I  couldn't  help  it." 

The  letter  ended  here  at  the  bottom  of  the  page. 
There  may  have  been  more,  with  a  signature,  which 
Mrs.  Axson,  for  good  reasons,  did  not  send  me.  I 
imagine  there  was.  Marcella  was  not  a  spasmodic  soul. 

These  two  letters  and  one  trunk  are  the  only  things  of 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Marcella's  left  in  my  house  now.  Once  I  started  to  send 
the  trunk  to  her  but  decided  to  look  into  it  first.  When  I 
had  looked  into  it  I  knew  she  didn't  want  it.  In  the 
tray  was  some  jewelry  I  had  given  her,  all  the  jewelry  I 
had  given  her,  pieces  I  had  forgot  the  existence  of. 
I  understood  that.  But  the  rest  of  the  trunkful  puzzled 
me  at  first.  It  was  a  litter  of  old  invitations,  notes  of 
society  such  as  every  woman  gets;  scores  of  cards  of 
admission  to  all  sorts  of  places,  notifications  of  her 
election  to  this  or  that  society,  requests  of  her  patron- 
age for  charities,  for  balls,  teas,  plays;  receipted  bills, 
and  handfuls  of  cotillon  favors,  paper  flowers,  gim- 
crack  jewelry  of  all  sorts.  That  was  what  she  left.  I 
had  given  her  all  of  them.  Each  thing  had  been  given 
to  Mrs.  Vinton. 

After  I  looked  carefully  through  all  that  rubbish  I 
put  down  the  trunk  lid  and  asked  myself  what  else 
I  had  given  her?  My  own  soul  and  body,  I  answered 
boldly.  What  more  could  a  woman  want?  Evidently 
something,  but  as  yet  I  know  not  what. 

My  Aunt  Louise  has  returned  to  New  York,  and  a 
few  days  ago  she  sent  for  me.  She  is  staying  at  the 
Buckingham.  I  suppose  the  Buckingham  represents  to 

27 


PIERRE    VINTON 

her  New  York's  best  imitation  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Germain.  Her  mother,  my  grandmother — Aunt  Louise 
is  my  maternal  aunt — was  a  De  Meilhac,  and,  if  all 
Aunt  Louise  tells  me  of  the  De  Meilhacs  is  true,  Mile, 
de  Meilhac  was  guilty  of  a  frightful  mesalliance  when 
she  married  my  grandfather.  I  remember  when  I 
asked  my  father  about  this,  he  briefly  replied:  "The 
less  said  about  your  grandmother,  the  better."  Mrs. 
Grandy  says  such  a  great  deal  about  her,  I  am  tempted 
sometimes  to  repeat  this  to  her. 

I  went  to  the  Buckingham  in  some  trepidation,  being 
uncertain  of  the  attitude  of  the  andenne  noblesse  to 
divorce,  and,  when  necessary,  Aunt  Louise  can  imitate 
the  grande  dame  very  impressively.  Sometimes,  when 
she  tells  me  to  be  seated  and  points  a  long,  slender 
white  finger  at  the  very  chair  I  am  to  occupy,  I  almost 
believe  in  the  De  Meilhacs  myself.  I  think  her  hair  has 
got  whiter  of  late.  It  is  the  color  of  this  paper  now,  and 
her  figure  makes  even  Marcella  envious.  She  was  dressed 
in  black  to  receive  me  and  looked,  as  usual,  rather 
care-worn  and  defiant  in  the  dark,  walnut-panelled 
room. 

She  was  very  affectionate,  however,  and  scarcely 
spoke  of  Marcella,  wherefor  I  was  intensely  grateful 

28 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  concluded  that  the  ancienne  noblesse  disapproves 
of  divorce.  For  once  I  am  in  sympathy  with  the 
Faubourg  Saint-Germain.  In  my  enthusiasm  I  reck- 
lessly asked  Aunt  Louise  to  dinner.  It  was  not  until 
she  accepted  that  I  remembered  Courty,  a  piece  of 
monumental  forgetfulness,  which  leaves  me  in  a  rather 
disagreeable  quandary.  There  is  no  chance  of  her  con- 
senting to  a  restaurant.  She  would  only  be  offended  by 
the  suggestion,  and,  of  course,  she  would  be  more  of- 
fended at  being  taken  in  to  dinner  by  a  man  without 
his  trousers,  not  altogether  unnaturally,  either.  Poor 
Courty  must  be  either  locked  up  for  the  evening  or 
else  properly  clothed.  Either  will  be  dangerous,  I  am 
afraid.  I  tried  to  introduce  him  gently  into  the  con- 
versation, when  she  asked  me  if  I  was  alone  in  the 
house.  I  said:  "Brown  is  living  with  me." 

"Brown?"  said  my  aunt. 

As  she  said  it,  I  confess  it  sounded  vastly  ple- 
beian. 

"Courtland  Brown,"  I  amended. 

"Oh,  Courtland  Brown.  Then  he  is  a  gentleman?" 

"Aunt  Louise,"  I  remonstrated,   "my  guests  are 
always  gentlemen." 

"I  mean,"  explained  my  aunt,  "technically." 
29 


PIERRE    VINTON' 

^Technically,"  I  answered,  "Courtland  Brown  is  a 
Sansculotte." 

My  aunt  looked  hurt.  She  thought  I  was  speaking 
disrespectfully  of  the  French  Revolution. 

At  times  Aunt  Louise  exasperates  me.  Her  mind  is 
about  as  broad  as  her  waist.  She  seemed  very  much 
interested  and  asked  me  several  more  questions  about 
Courty,  but  I  avoided  them  and  changed  the  subject. 
It  is  impossible  to  be  confidential  about  a  man  like 
Brown  with  a  woman  like  my  aunt.  They  could  never 
understand  one  another  in  a  thousand  years  of  intimacy. 

I  don't  quite  understand  my  aunt  myself.  She  appar- 
ently prefers  the  names  of  things  to  the  things  named. 
This  is  not  an  eccentricity  or  an  affectation;  it  is  the 
exact  expression  of  her  being,  and  a  queerer  being  than 
one  that  can  be  so  expressed  it  is  difficult,  it  seems  to 
me,  to  imagine.  If  the  French  government  were  to  lay 
waste  the  Jardin  des  Tuileries  and  paste  botanical 
labels  on  all  the  stumps,  I  can  fancy  Aunt  Louise  be- 
coming an  habituee  of  the  place;  I  can  picture  her  lost 
in  admiration  before  a  label:  Syringia  Spiridis. 

It  rather  takes  your  breath  away  to  leave  a  person 
of  this  sort  and  step  out  into  New  York  at  night. 
Aunt  Louise  is  one  of  the  minor  works  of  God,  I  think, 

30 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  New  York  is  one  of  the  vastest  works  of  man,  and 
the  comparison  is  not  very  reverent.  It  fairly  pounced 
upon  me  last  night  what  a  flashing,  vivid,  marvellous 
thing  a  city  is  at  night — the  leagues  of  light  and  the 
roaring  of  the  wheels.  It  shrinks  a  little  in  the  day,  is 
visibly  measurable,  a  trifle  tawdry,  and  not  altogether 
clean — a  small  human  thing  surrounded  by  immensi- 
ties. But  at  night  these  immensities  are  hidden.  Nature 
is  asleep,  as  it  were,  and  has  left  the  place  to  men,  and 
it  seems  to  me  they  fill  it  then  pretty  completely. 
Their  hand-made  city  seems  gigantic,  and  their  lights 
dazzle  me.  It  was  the  pale  moon  up  over  the  housetops 
which  seemed  feeble  and  theatrical.  I  have  an  awful 
reverence  for  my  fellow  men  when  the  world  is  thus 
left  to  darkness  and  to  them  and  me. 

I  can  almost  agree  with  Mrs.  Malory  at  these  times, 
that  my  highest  duty  is  to  introduce  as  many  others 
as  possible  to  the  company  of  my  fellow  creatures. 
Only  there  is  another  side  of  the  picture,  when  I  think, 
for  instance,  of  Father  Witherspoon  and  his  phantoms, 
of  Courty  Brown  wrestling  on  the  edge  of  Erebus  with 
the  devils  he  has  painstakingly  hatched  out  of  his  own 
soul,  and  of  Aunt  Louise  trying  to  galvanize  the  feudal 
system. 

81 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  want  no  fellowship  with  hypocrisy  or  devils  or  dead 
things.  With  what,  then,  do  I  want  fellowship  ? — for  I 
want  it  desperately  with  some  one.  With  some  one  that 
lives,  I  fancy,  without  even  the  spawn  of  such  devils 
in  body  or  soul  but  has  kept  both  clean-swept  by  health 
and  happiness  and  who  cares  no  more  for  metaphysics 
than  for  a  burnt-out  candle — if  there  is  such  a  person 
in  the  world. 

Of  course,  that  is  again  Marcella,  and  she  is  to  be 
found  at  Babylon — in  Uncle  Fred's  one  spare  bedroom. 

Oh,  Marcella!  Marcella!  How  am  I  going  to  live 
without  you?  That  I  am  to  do  so  I  see  plainly,  but  as 
yet  I  can  make  no  beginning.  The  vision  of  you  blocks 
every  vista  whereby  I  look  to  see  beyond  this  tangle 
of  daily  life. 


Ill 

THERE  is  a  Love  of  God  in  the  world,  say  the  Theo- 
logians; and  that  there  is  a  Love  of  Woman  is  the 
experience  of  Mankind.  The  Philanthropists  claim 
that  there  is  also  a  Love  of  Man.  I  wonder ! 

A  love  must  be  capable  of  filling  a  human  life,  or 
else  it  is  only  an  appetite.  Can  a  man  fill  his  life  with 
the  love  of  his  fellow  creatures.  In  the  face  of  all  the 
biographies,  sacred  and  profane,  again  I  say,  I  wonder ! 

I  wonder  because  this  afternoon  two  comparative 
strangers  inspired  me  with  inexplicable  affection.  Then 
there  is  Courtland  Brown,  whom  I  pity,  and  those 
loathsome  tenements  in  Avenue  X,  of  which  I  am 
ashamed.  Is  it  possible  that  I  could  fan  these  faintly 
glowing  embers  into  a  life-sustaining  blaze?  I  wonder. 

Young  Lawrence  Hastings  and  a  glorious  blonde  in 
a  black  velvet  hat  met  me  as  I  climbed  out  of  the 
subway  at  Forty-second  Street.  The  blonde  was  Bar- 
bara Gilbert,  though  I  did  not  know  it  immediately, 
having  never  seen  her  quite  so  glorious  before.  There 

S3 


PIERRE    VINTON 

was  a  sunset  flaring  down  Forty-second  Street  that 
was  trying  to  be  the  finest  thing  to  be  seen,  but  it 
failed,  I  thought.  In  the  phrase  of  Mrs.  Axson,  "the 
sunset  had  nothing  on  Barbara." 

"Halloo,  Pete,"  hallooed  Laurie.  There  is  nothing  of 
interest  in  me  to  him.  He  merely  wished  to  call  atten- 
tion to  his  own  exuberance,  like  a  rooster  crowing. 

Barbara  clapped  her  hands  and  gave  me  one  of  them. 
Barring  the  difference  in  sex,  the  greetings  were  pre- 
cisely similar. 

"Been  to  the  matinee?"  I  asked. 

"Do  we  look  like  we  had  been  to  a  stuffy  old  thea- 
tre?" asked  Laurie. 

"You  look,"  I  answered,  "like  you  had  been  to 
Paradise." 

"We  have  been  to  the  Bronx  Zoo,"  put  in  Barbara, 
blushing. 

"Let's  go  to  tea,"  I  suggested. 

We  did.  We  went  to  Sherry's,  and  Barbara  was  the 
prettiest  woman  there.  I  thought  so,  and  I  overheard 
Laurie  making  the  same  criticism.  But  he  is  a  worth- 
less character,  I  am  afraid.  I  noticed  he  knew  the  head 
waiter.  No  young  man  of  Laurie's  income  has  any 
business  knowing  head  waiters. 

34 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Did  you  ever  go  to  the  Bronx  Zoo?"  Barbara 
asked  me. 

"You  ought  to  go,"  said  Laurie.  "It  is  full  of  the 
darndest,  funniest  old  animals." 

"Thanks,"  I  answered,  "I  think  I'll  stick  to  the 
club." 

"Oh!"  said  Barbara,  "that's  rude.  Papa  is  a  mem- 
ber." 

He  is,  too — a  patient  sort  of  trained  seal,  who  runs 
a  trust  company  daytimes  and  plays  lady's-maid  to 
his  trainer  at  other  times. 

"Peter  is  a  funny  old  animal  himself,"  said  Mr. 
Hastings. 

Barbara  gave  me  a  long  look  over  the  teapot.  She 
is  about  five  thousand  years  older  than  he  is.  "Are 
you  the  cream  or  lemon  eating  kind?"  she  asked. 

I  declined,  and  she  supposed  that  we  both  wanted 
whiskey,  as  I  suppose  we  both  did,  but  the  supposi- 
tion made  us  drink  tea.  Mine  was  the  vilest  drink  I 
can  remember  this  side  of  the  nursery. 

"I  didn't  think  you'd  drink  it,  so  I  just  put  in  hot 
water,"  she  explained. 

"What  did  you  think  he  would  do  with  it?"  asked 
Laurie.  "Give  it  to  a  cold  policeman?" 

35 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  What  do  men  do  generally  when 
they  want  something  that  isn't  given  them?" 

"Beg,  steal,  or  borrow,"  quoted  Laurie.  "That's 
three  ways." 

"What  do  women  do?"  I  asked. 

"They  just  get  it,"  said  Barbara.  "Men  do,  too.  I 
meet  men  every  day  who  do.  They  don't  deserve,  they 
don't  earn,  or  beg,  or  steal,  or  borrow;  they  just  get 
what  they  want." 

She  looked  at  Laurie  and  Laurie  winced. 

Laurie  wants  her.  How  is  he  going  to  get  her?  That 
is  the  question  for  those  two. 

It  is  a  big  stake  for  a  man  in  Laurie's  shoes  to  play 
for,  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  will  see  to  it  that  he  has  "no 
favor."  He  is  handicapped,  too,  by  a  father  who  made 
away  with  a  trust  fund.  And,  most  fatal  of  all,  he 
totally  lacks  audacity.  Most  men  of  my  generation  do. 
They  have  impudence  instead.  For  example,  I  doubt 
if  he  kissed  Barbara  in  the  Bronx  Park,  which  would 
have  been  audacity,  yet  he  called  her  "Old  Sox"  at 
Sherry's,  which  was  impudence.  As  I  have  never  seen 
the  two  combined,  I  am  quite  certain  he  lacks  audacity. 
Still,  he  is  a  nice  boy,  who  smells  of  soap  and  keeps  his 
hair  smooth. 

86 


PIERRE    VINTON 

He  had  no  answer  for  that  look  of  hers,  except  to 
light  a  cigarette.  "How  is  Brown?"  he  asked  me. 

"Who  is  Brown?"  asked  Barbara. 

"The  human  latch-key  of  New  York,"  answered 
Laurie. 

How  Mrs.  Gilbert  must  hate  that  boy.  There  is  a 
certain  aptness  in  his  remarks  which  would  be  excruci- 
atingly irritating  if  you  had  any  cause  to  dislike  him. 

I  tried  to  put  Brown's  case  a  little  more  clearly  be- 
fore Barbara.  She  kept  her  eyes  fixed  thoughtfully  on 
mine  the  while.  She  has  blue  eyes,  whose  glances  rest 
§o  softly  as  to  be  unfelt. 

"Do  you  do  that  sort  of  thing  much?"  she  asked 
me. 

"What  sort  of  thing?" 

"Oh,  pull  people  out  of  holes." 

"Sure,"  put  in  Laurie.  "He  does  it  all  the  time.  I 
told  you  he  was  a  queer  old  animal." 

When  she  drew  on  her  gloves  she  held  out  her  hand 
to  me  across  the  table.  "Will  you  come  to  see  me 
sometime?"  she  said.  "I  know  lots  of  people  who  have 
got  into  holes." 

"They  always  get  out,"  I  said. 

"Do  they?"  she  asked. 

37 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Invariably." 

"Thank  you,"  she  said. 

She  went  home  in  a  cab.  I  hoped  Laurie  would  go 
with  her  and  make  love  violently  for  at  least  ten  blocks, 
but  they  had  other  plans.  I  suppose  he  was  not  to  be 
seen  at  the  house.  It  was  probably  a  stolen  afternoon, 
that  afternoon  up  at  the  Bronx. 

He  walked  home  with  me  instead.  He  is  a  cheerful 
youth. 

"Barbara  likes  you,"  he  told  me. 

I  said  I  was  flattered. 

"Yes,"  he  went  on,  "she  likes  you.  To  tell  the  truth, 
you  are  about  the  only  friend  I've  got  she  does  like." 

As  I  have  talked  to  him  perhaps  a  dozen  times  in 
my  life,  I  thought  that  even  more  flattering. 

"Well,  to  tell  you  the  truth,  Laurie,"  I  replied, 
"she  is  about  the  only  friend  you  have  I  like." 

I  don't  know  who  the  others  are,  but  I  took  the 
chance. 

"Oh !  they  are  not  half  bad,"  he  protested. 

"Yes.  But  she  is  all  right." 

"Isn't  she?  Look  here.  Let  me  tell  you  something." 

What  he  told  me  lasted  four  blocks  in  telling,  and  I 
had  known  it  all,  of  course,  in  four  seconds  on  Forty- 

38 


PIERRE    VINTON 

second  Street.  Nevertheless,  he  left  me,  pledged  to  im- 
mutable secrecy. 

I  liked  them  both.  I  enjoyed  the  party.  I  have  talked 
to  Brown  about  it  all  the  evening.  Having  wrecked  my 
own  affair  of  this  sort,  I  should  like  to  try  my  hands  on 
some  one  else's.  Is  this  love  of  man,  or  the  love  of 
match-making.  Am  I  beginning  to  be  a  meddler  or  a 
philanthropist  ? 

•  •••••  •• 

V 

It  is  curious  to  observe  what  an  important  part 
trousers  have  come  to  play  in  human  affairs.  They  have 
not,  I  believe,  been  in  general  use  a  hundred  years, 
scarcely  longer  than  steam-engines,  but  they  are  in- 
finitely more  influential.  Courty,  now,  has  been  com- 
pletely sober  for  more  than  a  week.  He  has  taken  up 
drawing  again,  and  he  has  done  some  rather  clever 
things.  I  have  one  of  them  framed  and  hung  in  the 
drawing-room.  This  would  give  Marcella  a  fit,  but  it 
pleases  Courty  tremendously.  Habliston,  who  is  a  paid 
spy,  tells  me  he  frequently  sees  him  stealing  into  the 
drawing-room  to  look  at  it.  I  don't  think  Marcella 
would  object  if  she  knew  this.  No.  I  can  easier  fancy 
Marcella  telling  Courty  it  is  a  better  likeness  of  me — 
it  is  a  picture  of  me — than  the  Helleu  is  of  her.  Some- 


PIERRE    VINTON 

how,  I  can  only  picture  her  saying  gracious  things  and 
doing  lovely  actions  nowadays,  though  I  know  very 
well  she  can  be  very  disagreeable  when  she  chooses. 
I  am  proud  of  the  picture,  too,  though  I  can't  say  I 
like  to  look  at  it.  I  regard  it,  in  a  way,  as  the  child  of 
my  brain.  Carlyle  has  a  great  deal  to  say  about  Fox's 
leather  breeches  that  turned  the  tailor  into  a  reformer. 
I  begin  to  share  his  enthusiasm  for  the  garments,  since 
I  have  learned  that  they  may  turn  a  drunkard  into  an 
artist.  That  seems  to  me  a  more  desirable  alteration 
than  Carlyle's. 

•  •*••••• 

I  have  been  operated  on  by  a  psychologist.  I  have 
been  trifling  with  the  business  for  several  months  in 
an  amateurish  sort  of  way,  trying  my  own  hand  on  it 
and  trying  Bertrand  Witherspoon's  too,  and  Mrs. 
Malory's,  and  Mrs.  Axson's.  At  last,  I  determined  to 
go  to  a  professional  and  get  it  done  with.  He  performed 
very  skilfully  over  a  dinner-table  and  in  about  an  hour's 
time. 

He  was  one  of  those  damnable  De  Meilhacs.  The 
French  Revolution  was  not,  I  am  beginning  to  see,  as 
thorough  an  affair  as  Aunt  Louise  represents.  Phillipe 
de  Meilhac  is  a  very  pale  fellow  with  good  manners 

40 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  rather  long,  pale  hair,  a  bloodless,  thin,  silken- 
voiced  cat  fancier.  Maltese  cats  is,  I  believe,  his  hobby, 
or  perhaps  it  is  Angora  cats.  At  any  rate,  they  are  ex- 
tinct, and  he  is  trying  to  regenerate  them.  He  believes 
in  Bergson  and  enjoys  Brieux;  he  drinks  aperitifs,  and 
he  reproduces  extinct  cats.  Aunt  Louise,  as  usual, 
brought  him  over.  We  have  known  each  other  for 
years,  and  our  common  aunt  is  apt  to  say  that  we  "were 
boys  together."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  boyhood,  the 
Atlantic  Ocean  was  generally  between  us,  and  we  saw 
each  other  scarcely  more  than  once  in  twelve  months, 
but  in  that  lady's  scheme  of  life  it  is  not  unusual  to 
ignore  a  circumstance  like  an  ocean.  Nowadays,  Phil- 
lipe  and  I  exchange  letters  when  either  is  visiting  the 
other's  hemisphere,  and  when  we  meet  the  procedure 
is  always  the  same;  the  native  puts  the  foreigner  down 
at  a  club  and  asks  him  to  dinner,  and  then  I  ask  for 
his  cats,  and  he  asks  me  about  my  wife.  But,  to  my 
great  surprise,  the  programme  was  not  completed;  he 
did  not  ask  for  my  wife. 

"Why  don't  you  ask  for  Marcella?"  I  inquired. 

"Because,"  he  answered,  "I  did  not  suppose  you 
knew  anything  about  her."  He  speaks  English  perfectly. 
The  only  lingual  evidence  he  gives  of  foreign  birth  is 

41 


PIERRE    VINTON 

a  trick  of  using  antiquated  slang.  He  apparently  thinks 
English  slang  is  an  immutable  tongue.  So,  now,  he 
added:  "She  has,  I  believe,  flown  the  coop." 

"She  has,"  I  admitted.  The  slang  was  of  question- 
able age,  but  I  must  confess  it  was  singularly  apt. 
Marcella,  it  seems  to  me,  has  done  exactly  that.  She 
has  got  out  of  a  coop;  she  has  spread  the  wings  given 
her  to  fly  with  and  has  flown. 

"She  was  a  most  charming  woman,"  said  Phillipe. 
"I  should  like  very  much  to  see  her  again." 

"So  should  I,"  I  answered. 

He  ceased  salting  his  oysters  and  stared  at  me. 
"Really?  Then  why  did  she?" 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders.  Phillipe  never  shrugs  his 
shoulders.  He  is  the  bluntest,  most  phlegmatic  fellow 
in  the  world. 

"I  suppose,"  he  suggested,  "she  was  bored." 

"I  suppose  so.  I  would  give,"  I  added,  "a  good  deal 
of  money  to  know  just  why  she  was  bored." 

"I  can  explain,"  said  Phillipe,  continuing  calmly  to 
eat  oysters.  "You  amused  her  as  a  lover,  because  you 
were  rich  and  she  was  poor;  but  you  bored  her  as  a 
husband." 

"You  touch,"  I  said,  "the  very  heart  of  the  mat- 
42 


PIERRE    VINTON 

ter.  I  failed  as  a  husband.  What  is  a  husband. 
Phillipe?" 

"The  good  God  only  knows,"  answered  Phillipe 
calmly.  "He  is  a  woman's  nearest  approach  to  a  good 
friend,  perhaps.  He  is  the  precipitate  in  her  cup  of 
life  when  the  liquor  of  love  has  boiled  away.  That 
would  sound  better  in  French,"  he  added. 

"Then  say  it  in  French,"  I  advised.  "It  sounds  like 
a  cooking  recipe  in  English." 

He  laid  down  his  fork.  Then,  very  much  as  though 
he  were  reading  from  previous  notes,  he  detailed  for 
me  my  conjugal  infirmities.  He  assured  me  that  I 
could  not  have  prevented  the  state  of  affairs  he  de- 
scribed. I  was  the  victim  of  psychological  conditions. 
He  pointed  out  to  me  that  I  bored  Marcella,  not  the 
marriage  state  or  any  other  circumstance  of  Mar- 
cella's  particular  marriage  state.  The  only  way  I  could 
have  prevented  this,  it  seemed,  was  by  falling  in  love 
with  Mrs.  Axson,  but  he  admitted  that  my  being  in 
love  with  Marcella  at  the  time  was  an  impenetrable 
obstacle. 

I  once  got  an  artist  at  Atlantic  City  to  draw  my  por- 
trait for  a  half  dollar,  and  for  an  extra  twenty-five 
cents  he  let  me  look  over  his  shoulder  while  he  did  it. 

43 


PIERRE    VINTON 

The  only  difference  between  the  two  situations  is  that 
I  knew  the  grotesque  figure  on  the  drawing  card  was  a 
caricature,  but  there  is  a  diabolical  verisimilitude  about 
my  cousin's  portraiture  that  can't  be  ignored.  When 
he  had  finished  my  picture  he  started  to  portray  Mar- 
cella,  but  I  put  out  my  finger  and  stopped  his  pencil. 
That  was  not,  I  felt,  included  in  the  hah*  dollar.  Even 
the  extra  twenty-five  cents  did  not  cover  that. 

"You  have  drawn,"  I  told  him,  "a  most  convincing 
likeness  of  me.  Your  keenness  of  observation  is  beyond 
praise.  It  shows  scientific  enthusiasm  that  will  some 
day  accomplish  the  regeneration  of  the  Maltese  cat, 
but  still  I  feel  that  your  skill  will  be  baffled  by  Mar- 
cella." 

"I  believe,"  said  Phillipe,  "in  examining  these 
things  frankly.  By  doing  so  we  avoid  making  mistakes 
and  collect  information." 

I  felt  that  I  had  collected  all  the  information  I 
needed  for  the  present  and  told  him  so.  He  went  away 
to  fill  an  engagement  somewhere,  and  I  suppose  made 
a  note  of  me  before  he  slept,  sandwiching  me  between 
two  interesting  cats. 

I  fancy  very  few  of  the  human  race  for  the  last  four 
or  five  thousand  years  have  sincerely  acknowledged 

44 


PIERRE    VINTON 

themselves  to  be  bores,  judging  from  my  difficulty  in 
making  this  admission.  It  is  a  faculty  almost  atrophied 
by  desuetude.  My  aversion  to  the  task  is  otherwise 
incomprehensible.  I  realize  frankly  that  I  would  rather 
have  driven  Marcella  away  by  cruelty  or  by  flagrant 
immorality.  I  prefer,  apparently,  being  a  brute,  or 
even  a  rake,  to  being  a  bore.  This  truly  is  incompre- 
hensible, and  shows  what  a  lamentable  condition  in 
this  respect  the  human  species  has  got  into,  if  I  am  in 
any  way  representative  of  the  human  species,  and  I 
believe  I  am. 

Such  was  the  wisdom  of  Phillipe  de  Meilhac.  It  is 
the  common-sense  view  of  the  situation.  Marcella 
married  me  because  she  was  poor,  and  then  she  di- 
vorced me  for  being  a  bore.  I  can  very  nearly  make  it 
rhyme,  and  when  common  sense  rhymes  it  is  generally 
regarded  as  additional  proof  of  its  wisdom.  When  a 
fool  can  prove  his  folly  with  a  jingle  he  always  feels 
triumphant.  If  I  failed  Marcella  as  a  husband  it  was 
not  because  I  bored  her,  but  because  I  did  not  under- 
stand her.  I  understood  her  body  well  enough,  and  I 
tended  that  skilfully  and  satisfactorily,  as  Phillipe 
says,  but  it  was  her  soul  speaking  when  I  did  not 
understand.  This  is  not  common  sense,  and  Phillipe 

45 


PIERRE    VINTON 

would  roar  with  laughter.  Her  body  wanted  silk  and 
caviare  and  a  lover,  and  I  and  Phillipe  and  the  news- 
papers all  understood  that.  I  wonder  what  the  other 
message  was  ?  It  was  not  a  sordid  comedy  of  greed  and 
stupidity  we  two  played  in  marriage.  It  was  a  very 
common  tragedy  of  two  inarticulate  mites  of  immor- 
tality groping  for  one  another  in  the  darkness  and 
never  touching.  Now  we  have  gone  separate  ways, 
and  neither  will  ever  know  what  the  other  would  have 
said.  It  is  this  spiritual  inarticulateness,  it  seems  to 
me,  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  most  of  the  unhappiness 
in  the  world,  as  it  is  at  the  bottom  of  mine.  We  are 
deaf  and  dumb  as  beasts,  for  the  most  part  of  us.  What 
is  a  poet  ?  A  man  with  a  tongue  in  his  soul. 

Whereupon,  I  suppose,  would  come  inextinguishable 
laughter  from  Phillipe.  Arguing  with  him  is  very  like 
playing  tenpins.  You  set  up  the  ideas,  and  he  bowls 
them  down  with  the  facts.  It  is  rather  amusing  if  you 
did  not  care  anything  about  the  ideas,  but  I  have  a 
liking  for  this  one,  so  I  never  set  that  up.  He  left  me 
to  fill  an  engagement  somewhere,  and  I  went  to  see 
Mrs.  Axson.  She  is  the  best  diagnostician  of  my  social 
malady  whom  I  know. 

I  have  never  appreciated  Lilly  Axson's  beauty,  I  am 
46 


PIERRE    VINTON 

afraid.  She  was  wearing  a  yellow  tea-gown  with  a  great 
deal  of  lace  about  it,  a  few  shades  darker  yellow  than 
the  silk,  and  her  hair  was  a  lighter  shade  than  either, 
and  her  skin  was  paler  than  all.  She  was  deliciously 
toned.  She  made  me  think  of  a  contralto  voice. 

"You  will  probably  destroy  my  reputation  by  com- 
ing at  such  an  hour,"  she  told  me. 

"I  wish,"  I  replied,  "it  could  destroy  my  reputa- 
tion." 

"When  did  you  get  any  such  thing?"  asked  Mrs. 
Axson. 

"This  evening,"  I  answered,  "from  Phillipe  de 
Meilhac." 

"Has  that  bore  comevback  again?"  said  LiUy. 

Pale  yellow  is  becoming  to  her.  I  drew  my  chair 
closer  to  the  fire  and  felt  more  comfortable.  The  fire 
was  built  of  logs  ten  inches  long  in  a  pretty  tiled  fire- 
place with  shining  brass  fire  things  and  a  shining 
glass  screen. 

"Put  on  another  log,"  said  Lilly  generously. 

I  lifted  one  of  the  logs  between  my  thumb  and  finger 
and  laid  it  carefully  athwart  the  irons. 

"I  couldn't,"  observed  the  author  of  the  conflagra- 
tion, "couldn't  live  without  an  open  fire." 

47 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Possibly  she  couldn't.  The  list  of  things  she  could 
not  live  without  is  appallingly  long. 

"Why  do  you  call  Phillipe  a  bore?" 

"Why  do  you  call  anybody  a  bore?"  said  Lilly. 

"He  called  me  a  bore,"  I  said.  "And  he  explained 
very  exactly  why  and  how." 

"Who  did  he  say  you  bored?'* 

"Marcella,"  I  answered. 

"How  funny!"  said  Mrs.  Axson.  "Perhaps  you  did. 
I  never  thought  of  it." 

"He  said,"  I  went  on,  "that  I  did  nothing  to  in- 
terest her.  And  he  suggested  that  if  I  had  made  love 
to  you  I  might  have  interested  her." 

"If  you  had,"  interrupted  Lilly,  "I'd  have  smacked 
you.  I  love  Marcella." 

"But  it  would  all  have  been  for  Marcella's  good," 
I  pointed  out.  "She  would  have  liked  me  better,  and 
that  would  have  made  her  happier." 

Mrs.  Axson  smiled.  "Well,  it  is  too  late  now,"  she 
answered. 

"Is  it?"  I  asked  absently. 

"What  is  the  use  of  making  Marcella  jealous  now?" 
Lilly  asked  very  sensibly. 

"Oh,  none  on  earth,"  I  agreed. 
48 


PIERRE    VINTON 

It  is  very  pleasant  to  talk  in  this  way  to  a  woman 
like  Lilly  over  a  fire  of  that  sort.  The  fire  might  con- 
ceivably get  out  of  hand  and  burn  down  the  apart- 
ment-house, and  I  might  conceivably  fall  in  love  with 
Mrs.  Axson  and  play  the  deuce  that  way.  The  pos- 
sibilities add  a  sporting  flavor  to  the  situation. 

"What  is  M'sieu  de  Meilhac,"  asked  Lilly  after  a 
pause,  "doing  in  New  York?" 

"I  haven't,"  I  admitted,  "the  very  faintest  idea. 
Probably  something  about  cats." 

"What  queer  things,"  she  observed,  "men  get  in- 
terested in."  She  stuck  out  her  foot  with  a  gilt  slipper 
dangling  by  the  toe  and  swung  it  thoughtfully.  "If  I 
were  a  man,"  she  continued,  "I  would  only  be  inter- 
ested in  women.  I  should  make  it  my  business  to  know 
all  about  them,  and  then  I  should  write  books  to  in- 
terest them  on  evenings  when  they  don't  go  out  to 
dinner." 

"That  would  be  a  delightful  way  of  making  a  for- 
tune," I  agreed. 

"I  have  often  thought,"  she  went  on,  "of  taking 
some  man's  name  and  writing  such  a  book  myself.  I 
know  all  about  women,  and  I  have  plenty  of  tune, 
that  is,  I  could  make  plenty  of  time.  If  there  was 

49 


PIERRE    VINTON 

something  really  interesting  at  home  there  are  lots  of 
things  I  could  give  up  doing  outside." 

I  reflected  that  she  had  a  husband  and  a  son;  but, 
then,  Tom  is  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  son  is  in 
the  nursery  asleep  by  seven  every  evening.  Four  times 
a  year  Tom's  attorney  pays  her  five  thousand  dollars, 
and  about  as  many  times  a  day  the  nurse  brings  little 
Tom  out  of  the  nursery.  That  schedule  unquestion- 
ably leaves  hours  for  idleness,  as  she  observed. 

"There  are  a  great  many  evenings,  you  know,  when 
I  don't  go  out  to  dinner.  What  do  you  do,  Pierre,  the 
evenings  you  stay  at  home  ? " 

I  thought  it  over.  "Generally,"  I  answered,  "I  play 
double-dummy  bridge  with  Brown." 

"And  I,"  said  Lilly,  "play  idiot's  delight  with 
myself." 

For  the  first  time  in  my  life  it  occurred  to  me  that 
Mrs.  Axson  might  regret  her  husband.  It  is  one  of 
Fate's  little  ironies  that  Tom  should  be  chiefly  inter- 
ested in  the  bottoms  of  oceans.  He  goes  all  over  the 
earth  looking  at  them.  Just  now  he  is  looking  at 
the  bottom  of  the  Mediterranean.  Lilly's  forte,  on  the 
contrary,  is  keeping  to  the  surface.  Nevertheless,  just 
then,  I  wondered  if  she  ever  regretted  Tom. 

50 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Did  he  say  you  bored  Marcella?"  she  asked,  com- 
ing suddenly  out  of  a  revery. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "he  did.  Confound  him." 

"Well,  he's  right.  You  did.  Marcella  was  bored 
just  as  I  am  bored.  That  is  the  trouble  with  us  nowa- 
days. We  are  all  bored,  and  we  are  just  beginning  to 
find  it  out.  Do  you  suppose  I  like  to  play  idiot's  de- 
light?" 

"Sometimes,"  I  confessed,  "I,  myself,  detect  the 
inadequacy  of  double  dummy." 

"Then  stop.  You  have  other  things  to  do.  But  we 
haven't,  you  know.  You  have  worked  and  saved  and 
invented  and  devised  until  you  have  devised  us  out  of 
all  employment.  We  can't  be  having  babies  all  the  time, 
you  know,  and  that  is  about  the  only  thing  we  are  ac- 
customed to  do  you  have  not  found  some  machine 
to  do  for  us.  And  you  didn't  leave  Marcella  that. 
Bored !"  cried  Mrs.  Axson,  "I  wonder  she  did  not  die 
of  it!" 

All  this  may  or  may  not  be  true,  but  it  was  quite 
beside  the  point;  it  was  not  at  all  the  sort  of  boredom 
Phillipe  meant.  So  I  told  Lilly.  To  my  surprise  the  re- 
mark made  her  very  angry. 

"I  don't  care  if  it  is  beside  the  point.  The  point  is 
51 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  want  to  talk  about  it.  I  want  to  talk  about  the — the 
— the  general  topic." 

"But,"  I  explained,  "he  was  talking  about  me." 

"And  so,  of  course,"  she  rejoined,  "you  want  to 
talk  to  me  about  yourself.  I  am  not  fit  to  be  talked 
to  about  anything  else.  Then,  you  can  go  home  and 
talk  to  Mr.  Brown.  Or  play  double  dummy  with  him. 
That  is  a  good  game  for  you  both,  double  dummy — 
two  dummies.  Go  home." 

I  rose  with  dignity  and  walked  to  the  door.  To  my 
surprise,  she  did  not  call  me  back.  When  I  looked  at 
her  I  thought  she  was  crying. 

"What's  the  matter?"  I  asked,  coming  back. 

"Go  home,"  she  said.  "I  mean  it.  Go  home." 

She  did  mean  it.  She  was  crying. 


IV 

MY  great-grandfather  left  France  forever  in  '48  and 
returned  to  Berne,  where  he  died  and  where  his 
daughter,  Louise  Rene'e  de  Meilhac,  married  Theodore 
Maltravers,  my  grandfather.  Mrs.  Maltravers,  my 
grandmother,  brought  with  her  to  America,  as  her  dot, 
a  considerable  amount  of  personal  jewelry.  The  history 
of  the  treasure  up  to  the  time  of  its  arrival  in  America 
can  be  told  only  by  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Grandy,  and 
it  takes  her  about  three  hours.  The  narrative  is  very 
interesting  and  involves  such  peccadilloes  on  the  part 
of  her  revered  ancestors  as  robbery,  extortion,  adul- 
tery, and  prostitution.  Its  history  after  its  arrival  in 
America  is  brief.  It  was  promptly  sold  by  the  Yankee 
bridegroom,  and  the  money  invested  in  New  York 
City  real  estate.  I  have  just  been  down  to  look  at  the 
real  estate.  It  was  an  unpleasant  sight,  Mademoiselle 
Louise  Ren6e  de  Meilhac's  dot. 

This  is  the  history  which  it  takes  my  aunt  three 
hours  to  recite.  I  shall  try  to  condense  it.  A  certain 

53 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Madame  la  Comtesse  de  Meilhac  was  for  a  short  time 
the  mistress  of  a  son  of  a  mistress  of  a  king  of  France. 
During  her  brief  period  of  social  distinction  the  lady 
procured  for  her  real  lover  (she  had  two,  the  vivacious 
old  lady),  a  simple  Gascon  gentleman,  the  privilege 
of  the  "Grandes  Entrees"  and  for  herself  a  handful 
of  diamonds.  But  the  distinction  of  the  comtesse,  my 
great-great-grandmother,  did  not  last  very  long.  The 
Due  du  Maine  shortly  got  himself  another  mistress. 
She  lost  her  Gascon  lover,  too,  and  in  '96  she  lost  her 
head;  of  all  her  splendor  the  diamonds  alone  survived. 
They,  in  the  possession  of  the  comtesse's  descendants, 
survived  the  Terror;  they  survived  the  emigration, 
when  they  glittered  feebly  for  a  while  in  Strasburg, 
and  the  First  Empire,  and  at  the  Restoration  they  once 
more  shone  in  the  salons  of  the  Tuileries;  and  they  even 
survived  the  Revolution  of  July.  It  was  not  until  the 
old  gentleman  at  Berne,  despairing  of  his  caste  and  his 
king,  gave  his  daughter  to  the  Yankee  that  their  light 
went  out  forever,  as  far  as  the  De  Meilhacs  were  con- 
cerned. Then  they  formed  Mrs.  Maltravers's  dot,  and 
their  price,  properly  invested,  has  formed  the  chief  sup- 
port of  her  descendants  ever  since. 
Now,  the  diamonds  may  have  looked  very  well  upon 
54 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  neck  of  the  Due  du  Maine's  mistress,  but  the  real 
estate  they  bought  is  a  blot  upon  the  face  of  God's 
earth.  I  viewed  it,  too,  from  the  front  and  at  night 
when  there  was  a  light  in  every  window  and  most  of 
the  grime  was  invisible.  Each  light  represented  a 
tenant  and  each  tenant  represents  from  ten  to  fifteen 
dollars  a  month  in  my  pocket.  How  much  is  left  in  the 
pockets  of  the  tenants  afterward  I  have  no  idea.  If  I 
had  a  social  conscience  doubtless  I  should  find  out, 
but  I  haven't.  I  have  only  an  idle  mind.  Therefore,  I 
stood  under  the  elevated  tracks  and  looked  up  at  the 
windows  and  tried  to  calculate  just  how  much  what  I 
looked  at  was  worth  to  me  in  monthly  payments.  It 
seemed  impossible  that  the  sum  I  arrived  at  could  be 
concealed  in  such  a  poverty-stricken  quarter.  Three 
thousand  dollars  a  month  were  somehow  scraped  to- 
gether by  the  people  who  lived  there  and  given  to  me. 
I  do  not  believe  any  one  of  them  ever  saw  such  a  sum 
in  notes  or  coins.  Yet  every  month  that  sum  is  got  to- 
gether by  them  and  given  me.  This  would  all  be  very 
disastrous  to  a  social  conscience,  but  it  is  very  inter- 
esting to  an  idle  mind.  What  marvellous  energy  to 
produce  such  wealth  out  of  such  squalor.  The  offices 
of  Vinton,  Bragg,  and  Goadby  are  ten  stories  up  with 

55 


PIERRE    VINTON 

mahogany  furniture  and  a  view  over  the  bay.  You 
expect  wealth  amid  those  surroundings,  but  you  do 
not  expect  it  amid  the  refuse  cans  of  Avenue  X.  Yet 
I  find  it  much  more  easily  in  Avenue  X.  To  an  idle 
mind  divorced  from  a  social  conscience  such  energy 
must  be  truly  marvellous.  Nor  was  the  energy  unpro- 
ductive even  then,  although  it  was  the  hour  of  rest. 
I  saw  a  child  selling  papers  on  the  corner.  I  saw  men 
and  women  coming  and  going  by  the  doors  of  saloons. 
I  saw  a  street-walker  disappear  in  a  black  doorway. 

My  idle  mind  was  quite  satisfied  by  these  sights, 
and  I  came  home  reassured  as  to  the  stability  of  my 
investment.  "Nous  avons  change  tout  cela,"  sang  the 
Red  Caps  from  the  Saint  Antoine.  That,  it  seems  to 
me,  is  only  silly  boasting.  They  broke  the  neck  of  the 
Comtesse  de  Meilhac  in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  but 
I  have  her  necklace  safely  hidden  down  in  Avenue  X. 
They  have  not,  so  far  as  an  idle  mind  can  see,  really 
changed  anything. 

I  sincerely  believe  that  Avenue  X  is  immutable.  I 
do  not  believe  that  it  can  ever  be  changed.  If  I  had  a 
social  conscience  I  should  very  probably  hasten  to  get 
rid  of  whatever  share  of  responsibility  I  have  in  the 
matter  by  selling  Avenue  X  or  by  building  there  model 

56 


PIERRE    VINTON 

tenements  with  red  geranium  boxes  on  the  window- 
sills.  But  I  have  not  such  a  spiritual  attribute,  and  I 
therefore  see  that  to  do  either  of  these  things  is  to 
avail  myself  of  an  evasion.  My  model  tenements  would 
be  lived  in  by  cleanly  people  or  else  they  would  soon 
cease  to  be  clean.  The  red  geraniums  would  be  tended 
by  people  who  loved  flowers  or  they  would  soon  die. 
Wherefore  I  must  needs  get  not  only  new  tenements 
but  new  tenants  as  well.  The  filth  of  Avenue  X  is  not 
in  the  gutters  and  bedrooms,  it  is  in  the  hearts  and 
minds  of  the  people  who  live  there.  I  should  like  to 
clean  these,  for  I  know  very  well  it  is  out  of  the  hearts 
and  minds  of  Avenue  X  my  three  thousand  dollars  a 
month  is  got.  It  is  these  hearts  and  souls  I  really  own 
and  not  the  land  in  fact,  and  I  should  like  to  clean 
them  up,  should  like  to  build  model  hearts  and  model 
minds  instead  of  tenements,  and  plant  geraniums  in 
human  souls.  I  know  also  that  unless  I  can  do  this  I 
can  do  nothing.  That  to  rebuild  Avenue  X  would  be 
in  reality  to  move  it  a  block  or  one  hundred  blocks 
east  or  north,  or  west  or  south.  The  spot  is  a  taint  in 
the  blood  of  the  body  politic  and  not  merely  a  sore 
on  the  skin. 

Now,  to  do  all  or  any  part  of  these  things  it  is  neces- 
57 


PIERRE    VINTON 

sary  to  love  Avenue  X  and  there  I  am  helpless.  I  could 
no  more  love  Avenue  X  than  a  straw  rick. 

Mrs.  Malory  says  this  is  not  so.  She  bases  her 
opinion  on  Courtland  Brown.  I  was  dining  there  and 
Avenue  X  came  into  the  conversation  after  dinner. 

"Look  at  Courtland  Brown,"  said  Mrs.  Malory. 
"That  proves  you  have  a  love  for  your  fellow  crea- 
tures." 

"It  can  only  prove  at  best,"  I  answered,  "that  I 
am  a  specialist.  Avenue  X  needs  a  general  practi- 
tioner." 

"It  is  the  same  thing,"  said  Mrs.  Malory,  looking 
for  thread  in  her  work-box.  "Even  as  you  do  it  unto 
the  least  of  these,"  she  quoted  timidly. 

This,  it  seems  to  me,  fatally  obscures  the  question. 
And  as  Mrs.  Malory  proceeded  the  obscurity  deepened. 
To  Mrs.  Malory  Avenue  X  is  a  means  of  "acquiring 
merit,"  a  sort  of  Buddhistic  prayer  box.  Hers  is  the 
point  of  view  of  the  educated  classes.  Now,  the  point 
of  view  of  the  political  classes,  so  bitterly  condemned, 
takes  Avenue  X  as  a  means  of  acquiring  votes,  and  I 
fail  to  see  any  vital  difference  between  them.  The 
avenue,  however,  is  not  so  impartial.  It  greatly  pre- 
fers the  ward  boss  to  the  district  nurse,  I  am  told. 

58 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  tried  to  explain  this  to  Mrs.  Malory,  but  I  am  very 
much  afraid  I  did  not  make  myself  clear,  because  she 
said  I  was  cynical,  and  there  is  in  my  comprehension 
of  the  situation  absolutely  no  room  for  cynicism. 

"Look  at  Eleanor  North,"  said  Mrs.  Malory.  "She 
bought  a  house  in  some  horrible  alley  near  Houston 
Street  and  lived  there.  Can  you  compare  a  woman  like 
her  to  some  drunken,  vote-stealing  politician?  They 
adored  her,  too.  They  called  her  'The  Angel.' ' 

"They  should  have  cut  her  wings,"  I  suggested,  "so 
she  couldn't  fly  away  with  the  local  doctor." 

Mrs.  Malory  is  a  most  unsatisfactory  person  to 
argue  with  if  you  have  any  purpose  of  arriving  at  a 
conclusion. 

"I  think,"  she  answered,  "that  it  was  splendid  of  her 
to  marry  the  man  she  loved,  no  matter  who  he  was." 

Perhaps  it  was,  but  in  the  vicinity  of  Houston 
Street  it  was  doubtless  regarded  as  human.  I  happen 
to  know  that  "  The  Angel "  is  now  living  within  sight 
of  Central  Park,  while  the  vote-stealing  politician  is 
doubtless  still  distributing  "jobs"  in  the  vicinity  of 
Houston  Street.  Knowing  this,  I  cannot  so  severely 
blame  the  neighborhood's  preference  as  Mrs.  Malory 
does. 

59 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Did  you  expect  her  to  bring  up  her  children,"  was 
Mrs.  Malory's  protest,  "in  a  place  like  that?" 

When  Mrs.  Malory  introduces  children  into  the 
conversation  I  do  not  believe  in  continuing  it.  Further- 
more, I  saw  that  she  had  got  the  better  of  me.  Eleanor 
North  had,  indeed,  done  all  that  could  be  expected. 
To  do  more  would  have  been  to  do  wrong.  It  would 
have  been,  it  seems  to  me,  very  wrong  of  Eleanor 
North  to  bring  up  her  children  in  the  gutter  so  that  their 
mother  might  continue  to  be  an  angel.  As  I  view  the 
matter,  Eleanor  had  determined  to  give  up  her  life 
for  the  privilege  of  being  called  an  angel.  As  Mrs. 
Malory  views  it,  Eleanor  had  given  it  up  for  the  bene- 
fit of  Houston  Street.  It  does  not,  however,  matter 
the  least  in  the  world  because  Life  has  taken  Eleanor 
North  by  the  shoulders  and  refuses  to  be  given  up  at 
all,  totally  disregarding  both  angels  and  Houston 
Street. 

"Don't  go,"  said  Malory,  putting  down  his  paper 
as  I  rose;  "I  want  to  talk  to  you." 

I  confessed  that  I  had  been  on  the  other  side  of  his 
newspaper  all  evening. 

"I  was  reading,"  he  explained,  "until  you  and  Kate 
had  finished  talking  rot." 

60 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"We  weren't  talking  rot,"  said  Mrs.  Kate.  "Mr. 
Vinton  is  very  interesting,  and  it  would  be  very  much 
better  if  everybody  thought  about  such  things." 

"I  wonder  what  would  happen  if  we  all  did,"  asked 
Malory. 

I  said  I  didn't  know. 

"Then  I'll  tell  you,"  said  he. 

"Pray  do,"  I  replied  with  politeness. 

I  cannot  remember  precisely  what  it  was  he  did 
tell  me,  because  I  have  heard  it  so  often  before.  It 
was  indistinguishable,  like  noises  to  which  we  have 
grown  accustomed.  The  sum  of  it,  however,  was  that 
if  people  continued  to  talk  about  the  sacred  rights  of 
property  the  rights  would  cease  to  exist.  This,  it  seems 
to  me,  is  improbable;  but,  if  true,  very  unfortunate  for 
property,  because  sacred  rights  that  cannot  endure 
discussion  have  the  habit,  apparently,  of  getting  them- 
selves discussed  more  than  any  other  sorts  of  things 
in  the  world,  and,  finally,  of  getting  themselves  talked 
out  of  existence  altogether. 

When  I  told  him  something  of  the  sort  he  got  angry. 
"Touch  the  right  of  property,  and  you  touch  the 
corner-stone  of  civilization,"  said  Malory. 

"Perhaps.  I  don't  care.  I  have  no  wish  to  touch  it. 
61 


PIERRE    VINTON 

It  seems  to  me  ridiculous  that  progenital  morality, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  De  Meilhacs,  should  entitle  me  to 
so  large  a  proportion  of  the  earnings  of  those  people, 
and  I  no  more  believe  in  the  eternal  validity  of  the 
parchment  filed  down-town  in  the  record  office  which 
gives  it  to  me  than  in  a  dried  palm-leaf  blown  about 
the  Sahara.  To  me,  there  is  a  prima-facie  absurdity 
about  the  idea  which  neither  corner-stones  nor  sacred 
rights  nor  all  the  customs  of  time  can  obscure." 

"Honestly,  Vinton,"  said  Malory,  "if  I  didn't  know 
that  you  were  a  sensible  business  man  in  the  daytime 
I  would  think  you  were  crazy." 

Thereupon  I  left.  I  was  afraid  I  should  tell  Malory 
what  I  thought  of  him  in  the  daytime.  There  is  a  fable 
about  the  world  being  supported  on  the  backs  of 
elephants.  In  reality,  it  is  borne  on  the  backs  of  asses, 
millions  of  asses,  and  Malory  is  one  of  them.  Poor  fel- 
low !  He  bears  a  pretty  large  proportion  and  stands 
up  bravely  under  his  burden,  and  I  have  the  highest 
respect  for  him,  but  he  is  an  ass,  none  the  less. 

Of  course  he  would  retort  that  all  my  genius  can 
suggest  no  better  arrangement  than  the  one  he  de- 
fends, and  assuredly  it  cannot.  But,  at  least,  it  can 
suggest  a  better  method  of  discussion  than  one  which 

62 


PIERRE    VINTON 

babbles  of  corner-stones  and  sacred  rights,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  millenniums  and  inherent  rights  on  the 
other — a  method  which,  discarding  all  four  as  im- 
probabilities at  best,  would  discuss  instead  without 
sentimentality  or  political  mumbo  jumbo  both  the 
inhabitants  of  Avenue  X  and  their  landlord. 

Those  inhabitants  are  found  not  weak  if  this  method 
is  employed.  On  the  contrary,  their  energy  is  amazing. 
They  are  terribly  powerful,  and  they  are  dirty  in  minds 
and  bodies,  and  they  are  unintelligent.  That  is  a  ter- 
rifying combination — dirt,  ignorance,  and  energy — and 
it  is  fortunate  that  the  energy  is  absorbed  in  a  land- 
lord and  an  employer  or  in  anything  that  is  not  dirty 
and  ignorant,  thus  depriving  the  combination  of  its 
dangerous  factor  and  rendering  it  not  dangerous  at 
all,  only  very,  very  pitiful. 

Let  us  be  truly  and  devoutly  thankful,  explains  this 
method,  for  those  whose  hearts  feel  the  true  pity  of  it 
and  try  to  wipe  off  the  dirt  and  wipe  out  the  ignorance 
and  hope  that  they  will  succeed  in  wiping  out  both 
forever.  But  meanwhile  the  problem  has  gone  with 
the  energy.  What  are  those  who  are  merely  the  re- 
ceptacles of  this  waste  energy,  this  excess  of  humanity's 
wealth,  doing  with  it?  That's  the  question. 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Ay,  there's  the  rub,"  too,  for  me.  Mrs.  Axson  is 
playing  idiot's  delight,  and  Pierre  Vinton,  Esquire, 
is  not  doing  very  much  more. 


ir 

THERE  is  nothing  genuinely  worth  while  hating 
except  little  things.  For  example,  nobody  who  knew 
anything  about  the  subject,  I  fancy,  ever  really 
hated  the  devil.  Milton  admired  him;  Goethe,  at  least, 
admitted  his  charm.  It  is  because  he  is  too  big  for 
hate.  On  account  of  this  I  can  hate  Stewart  Dewar 
with  unimpaired  self-respect.  He  is  very  little. 

The  basis  of  my  animosity  is,  I  suppose,  if  I  were  to 
go  into  the  matter,  Dewar's  complete  civilization. 
We  admire  men  and  women,  at  least  I  do,  in  propor- 
tion to  their  power  to  resist  civilization.  Mrs.  Mal- 
ory makes  the  parlor-maid  dust  with  meticulous 
solicitude  the  tomahawk  of  Geronimo  fastened  to  the 
wall  over  Malory's  desk  in  the  library.  So,  again,  my 
dislike  for  Stewart  Dewar  is  accounted  for.  He  is 
completely  civilized.  The  most  uncivilized  thing  I  have 
ever  seen  him  do  is  to  eat  raw  oysters. 

He  evidences  this  by  his  intrepidity.  His  remote 
ancestors,  I  am  told,  feared  everything — a  thunder- 

85 


PIERRE    VINTON 

clap,  a  leaf  trembling  in  the  forest.  Dewar  has  lost 
fear.  For  the  tutelary  divinities  of  his  ancestors  he 
has  substituted  the  police  force.  Yet  he  does  not  try 
to  propitiate  his  god.  He  defies  and  abuses  him.  For 
the  forest,  whence  the  aboriginal  Dewars  derived  their 
meat,  he  has  substituted  the  stock-market,  and  in  the 
wildest  panic  he  sells  and  buys,  advances,  retreats, 
comes,  goes  calmly,  intrepidly,  like  a  god,  when  com- 
pared to  his  forefathers,  skulking  behind  rocks  and 
tree  boles.  At  one  time  it  was  a  consolation  to  me  that 
he  was  afraid  of  sailboats;  but  since  then  he  has 
bought  the  fastest  motor-boat  on  the  South  Shore, 
and  I  now  see  that  sailing  did  not  frighten  him;  it 
bored  him;  the  only  interruption  of  the  monotony  he 
could  anticipate  was  a  cyclone.  In  his  motor-boat  a 
loosened  screw  serves  the  purpose  and  is  vastly  more 
probable.  Hence  he  prefers  the  motor-boat.  It  is 
always  so  in  his  universe,  which  is  built  of  stone  and 
cement  and  ordered  by  electricity;  a  loosened  bolt,  an 
inch  of  naked  copper  wire  would  extinguish  him  in- 
stantly, and  he  rushes  through  it  superbly  calm  with 
the  greatest  possible  speed. 

He  would  be  truly  an  admirable  figure,  almost  worthy 
of  worship,  if  he  were  not  utterly  unintelligent.  But  he 

66. 


PIERRE    VINTON 

has  no  clearer  sense  of  direction  amid  all  this  tre- 
mendous output  of  energy  than  a  speck  of  rust  on  the 
fly-wheel  of  his  motor-car.  He  cannot  progress  because 
he  has  no  direction.  He  has  not  even  the  desire  to  ac- 
cumulate money.  He  spends  more  than  he  makes.  He 
is  not  even  a  miser. 

I  saw  him  yesterday  driving  his  motor  through  the 
park.  He  dashed  about  the  place  for  over  an  hour — 
I  met  him  three  or  four  times — at  about  forty  miles  an 
hour.  Nothing  could  have  been  more  characteristic  of 
him.  He  was  at  once  defying  his  tutelary  divinity  and 
enjoying  the  probability  of  landing  himself  and  three 
friends  in  eternity  before  dinner  time.  It  irritated  me 
more  than  is  usual,  because  Marcella  was  on  the  front 
seat  of  the  car.  She  did  not  recognize  me.  In  fact,  at 
that  speed,  she  could  scarcely  have  recognized  the 
Metropolitan  Museum.  I  had  some  difficulty  in  recog- 
nizing her,  for  she  was  muffled  in  furs  and  disguised  by 
a  pair  of  enormous  goggles. 

It  was  almost  dark  when  they  came  out  of  the  park. 
I  waited  at  the  Plaza  entrance  until  they  did  come  out. 
The  habit  of  looking  after  Marcella  must  have  got  a 
tremendous  hold  upon  me  while  I  was  her  husband. 
Finally,  they  came  out  and  stopped  within  ten  yards 

67 


PIERRE    VINTON 

of  me,  while  the  chauffeur  got  down  and  lit  the  lamps. 
Marcella  got  up  and  waved  her  arms  about  like  a 
semaphore,  and  I  heard  a  muffled  voice  from  out  one  of 
the  fur  wraps  in  the  tonneau  ask:  "Cold?" 

Marcella  said:  "Uh-huh." 

It  was  not  a  very  lovely  vision,  that  grotesque,  ges- 
ticulating goggled  figure  and  that  reply,  but  it  was  the 
first  time  I  had  seen  Marcella  since  we  were  divorced. 
I  was  in  the  shadow  of  the  wall,  quite  invisible  to  the 
profile  in  the  motor.  I  waited  until  they  had  driven 
away,  then  I  went  home,  feeling  like  a  little  boy  who 
could  not  get  another  little  boy  to  play  with  him. 

It  was  a  fifty  horse-power,  six-cylinder  car  that 
Stewart  Dewar  was  driving.  He  is  about  five  and  one 
hah*  feet  tall  and  weighs  very  few  more  than  one  hun- 
dred pounds.  His  universe  is  ordered  by  electricity — 
telephones,  telegrams,  lifts,  push  bells,  motor-cars, 
subways.  He  regards  the  country,  I  think,  as  a  quiet 
place  to  play  cards  in.  The  cement  and  steel-nerved 
city  with  copper  wire  is  the  womb  in  which  he  was  con- 
ceived. He  is  a  strange  product,  as  devoid  of  intelli- 
gence as  the  most  powerful  motor-car  in  his  garage. 

»••••••• 

Courtland  Brown  is  a  most  unaccountable  person. 
68 


PIERRE    VINTON 

The  three  weeks  I  have  lived  with  him  have  shown  me 
that  I  know  nothing  about  him.  I  expected  him  to  be 
an  unmitigated  nuisance.  He  has  most  remarkably 
disappointed  the  expectation,  and  I  still  know  noth- 
ing about  him.  Neither  does  Habliston,  which  is  truly 
amazing.  Habliston  at  first  was  a  spy  and  reported 
every  morning  Mr.  Brown's  actions  of  the  day  before. 
The  reports  grew  less  and  less,  and  now  we  never  dis- 
cuss Mr.  Brown.  If  Aunt  Louise  were  to  ask  me  now 
if  Courty  was  a  "technical  gentleman"  I  should  answer 
without  hesitation  in  the  affirmative,  relying  upon  this 
tacit  assurance  from  Habliston. 

He  spends  a  great  deal  of  his  time  since  liberty  and 
breeches  have  been  restored  to  him  on  Riverside 
Drive  doing  I  know  not  what.  I  am  not  quite  certain 
whether  I  expect  him  to  be  brought  home  drunk  from 
these  visits  or  not.  It  would  be  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  from  the  general  point  of  view.  From  the 
particular  one  which  I  have  insensibly  adopted  of 
late  it  would  be  a  tremendous  surprise.  I  switch  back 
and  forth  between  the  view-points  in  an  unpleasantly 
vacillating  manner. 

I  told  him  this  to-night  to  explain  my  irritation  when 
he  was  late  for  dinner.  He  laughed  and  said  he  himself 

69 


PIERRE    VINTON 

did  not  know.  Then  I  proposed  the  Avenue  X  scheme 
to  him. 

"Courty,"  I  said,  "how  would  you  like  to  be  an 
angel?" 

"How  soon?"  he  asked. 

"I  mean,"  I  explained,  "an  angel  like  Eleanor 
North.  Live  down  on  Avenue  X  and  show  everybody 
the  evil  of  then*  ways?" 

"Probably  I  could  show  them  a  good  deal,"  he 
meditated. 

"Think  it  over,"  I  suggested.  "I  want  an  angel 
down  there." 

"You  are  going  to  kill  two  birds  with  one  stone," 
said  Courty.  "Me  and  Avenue  X." 

In  a  way  that  is  true.  It  would  be  still  more  like  a 
cock-fight — matching  the  two  birds  against  each  other. 
If  he  agrees  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea  what  he  will 
do  in  Avenue  X  or  how.  These  are  details.  The  idea 
is  an  inspiration,  and  inspirations  are  smothered  by 
details.  They  can  only  be  managed  properly  when  they 
are  managed  in  the  grand  manner.  I  assumed  the  grand 
manner  in  presenting  the  idea  to  Brown. 

"  If  you  are  going  to  live  a  decent  life  you  will  neces- 
sarily be  a  beneficent  influence  in  the  avenue.  If  you 

70 


PIERRE    VINTON 

are  going  to  lead  any  other  sort  of  life  the  avenue  is 
an  excellent  place  for  you  to  live  it  in." 

"What  could  I  do?"  he  asked.  "Teach  all  the  little 
blackguards  how  to  swing  Indian  clubs?" 

The  inspiration  would  have  been  smothered  in  five 
minutes  if  I  had  attempted  to  answer  this  sort  of  ques- 
tion. I  explained  my  theory  of  inspiration  and  left  the 
matter  so. 

Poor  Courty !  He  is  a  victim  of  compensative  moral- 
ity. He  did  not  even  ask  why  he  should  be  a  source 
of  beneficent  influence  anywhere;  why  it  would  not 
suffice  him  merely  to  absorb  beneficence  of  the  sort 
emanating  elsewhere.  Instead,  he  asked  if  there  was  a 
monetary  reward  for  the  diffusion  of  beneficence  in 
Avenue  X. 

I  waved  my  hand  in  the  grand  manner.  "Munifi- 
cent," I  assured  him. 

"I'll  think  about  it,"  he  replied. 

After  all,  what  more  can  an  inspiration  ask  for  itself 
than  to  be  thought  about,  to  arouse  reflection? 

•  •  •  •  •  ••  * 

It  is  curious  how  completely  women  can  emasculate 
masculine  clothes.  I  met  Miss  Barbara  Gilbert  this 
afternoon  in  riding  clothes;  not  a  habit,  but  breeches 

71 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  boots,  a  long  coat,  and  a  stiff  hat,  and  a  more 
female  appearance  I  never  saw  the  human  figure  pre- 
sent. She*  was  wandering  rather  aimlessly  down  West 
Fifty-seventh  Street,  looking  up  at  the  house  numbers, 
and  she  said  she  was  looking  for  nineteen.  A  friend  of 
hers  lives  there,  and  they  were  going  riding  together. 

"It  is  rather  shocking,  isn't  it,"  she  asked  me, 
"going  on  the  street  in  these  things?" 

"It  would  be  extremely  shocking  if  a  man  did  it,"  I 
told  her.  "If  I  met  a  man  I  knew  wearing  things  like 
that  I'd  cut  him,  and  if  his  tailor  met  him  he  would 
probably  shoot  him." 

"What's  wrong?"  said  she.  "I  bought  them  at 
Brook's.  I  thought  they  were  rather  good." 

"They  are  awful." 

"I  wish  I  had  a  cab,"  she  replied.  "But  I  can't.  I 
haven't  any  money.  I  don't  know  where  to  put  it. 
What  pocket  do  you  put  money  in — in  riding  things 
— so  it  won't  come  out?" 

I  told  her  that  no  such  pocket  had  ever  been  made 
by  a  human  tailor  in  anything.  "But  there  is,"  I 
added,  "at  the  top  of  the  breeches " 

"Don't  be  too  literal,"  she  advised,  "and,  anyway, 
I  can't  unbutton  the  coat.  That's  one  of  the  rules." 

72 


PIERRE    VINTON 

The  only  scheme  I  could  think  of  was  a  groom  or  a 
maid  to  walk  behind  and  carry  the  cash. 

"Why  not  Laurie?"  I  suggested. 

"Laurie,"  said  Miss  Gilbert,  "hasn't  any  money  to 
carry." 

"So  he  told  me,"  I  answered. 

"Yes,  he  told  me  what  he  told  you.  I  think  it  was 
rather  fresh  of  him." 

"Everybody,"  I  replied,  "tells  me  secrets,  because 
I  never  tell." 

"Yes.  He  told  me  that  too.  Still,  it's  done  now," 
she  added  frankly.  "What  did  you  tell  him?" 

"Didn't  he  tell  you  that?"  I  asked.  "I  told  him 
you  were  quite  the  nicest  person  he  knew." 

"Oh!"  said  Miss  Gilbert.   "I  thought  you  were 
going  to  end  that  differently." 

"Most  people  would  have,"  I  agreed. 

"I  know  I  am  past  nineteen,"  she  answered.  "When 
are  you  coming  to  see  me  ?  " 

"To-morrow  afternoon,"  I  suggested. 

"Come  after  dinner.   I  am  going  to  be  alone  all 
evening.  Mamma  and  papa  are  going  out." 

I  confess  this  sounded  more  attractive.  Mrs.  Gil- 
bert is  a  most  uncongenial  person. 

73 


PIERRE    VINTON 

She  looked  at  me  quizzically  as  she  stood  on  the 
lowest  step  of  nineteen.  "I'd  give  a  great  deal,"  she 
remarked,  "to  know  just  what  Laurie  did  tell  you." 

"He  told  me  nothing  that  he  has  not  said  to  you," 
I  answered. 

"I  wonder  if  he  told  you  everything  he  has  told  me," 
she  said. 

"I  am  not  sure,"  I  replied,  "but  I  doubt  if  he  did. 
He  led  me  to  believe  that  there  was  something  he  had 
said  to  you  that  he  would  never,  as  long  as  he  lived, 
say  to  any  one  else." 

She  blushes  attractively,  which  is  a  feat  for  a  pro- 
nounced blonde.  She  blushed  attractively  now,  and 
ran  into  the  house,  and  as  I  continued  down  Fifty- 
seventh  Street  I  felt  quite  convinced  of  the  existence 
of  a  love  of  humanity. 

For  some  reason  Brown  considers  that  call  of  mine 
a  tremendous  joke.  He  is  very  witty  on  the  subject, 
and  when  I  speak  of  philanthropy  he  howls  with 
laughter.  The  cause  of  his  mirth  is  Barbara's  beauty. 
Apparently  he  thinks  a  beautiful  woman  outside  the 
pale  of  philanthropy;  they  cannot  be  included  in  a 
love  of  humanity. 

Mrs.  Axson  understands  me  better,  but  disapproves 
74 


PIERRE    VINTON 

of  my  efforts  because  they  will  be  wasted.  She  says 
that  both  Mrs.  Gilbert  and  Laurie  are  fools,  and  as 
nobody  can  help  fools  so  I  shall  be  discouraged  in  a 
worthy  cause. 
Between  them  I  find  the  path  of  true  philanthropy  a 

very  narrow  one. 

> 
•  •  *  •  •  •  •  • 

I  have  just  been  with  Mrs.  Axson  while  she  had  her 
boots  polished  in  Madison  Square.  This  is  a  result  of 
my  late  sociological  activities.  So  far,  I  must  confess, 
it  is  the  only  actual  result.  Brown  is  reflecting,  so  am 
I;  but  Mrs.  Axson,  like  a  woman,  has  acted. 

"Do  you  suppose,"  she  asked,  "the  sort  of  polish 
they  use  will  ruin  the  leather?" 

I  convinced  her  that  this  was  a  slander  circulated  by 
a  trust  to  injure  the  independent  trade  and  she  con- 
sented. I  beckoned  to  a  boy.  He  came  enveloped  in  a 
cloud  of  rivals. 

"Competition,"  I  pointed  out,  "is  yet  unstifled  in 
Madison  Square." 

"Drive  them  away,"  said  Lilly.  "Drive  them  away." 

Her  tone  was  not  at  all  in  accord  with  my  sociolog- 
ical theories.  "They  are  not  mosquitoes,"  I  replied 
sternly. 

75 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Nor,"  said  Mrs.  Axson,  "am  I  a  centipede." 

I  smoothed  over  this  mutual  misunderstanding  as 
best  I  could  and  retained  one  of  the  applicants.  He 
proudly  spit  on  his  hands  and  grasped  Mrs.  Axson's 
ankle. 

"I  am  afraid  I  didn't  pick  out  a  good  one,"  I  said 
apologetically. 

"I  am  afraid  you  didn't,"  said  Lilly. 

"It  is  more  or  less  guesswork,"  I  admitted. 

"What  are  you  pinching  my  toe  for?"  she  asked. 

The  bootblack  didn't  know,  nor  did  I.  I  told  her  it 
seemed  to  me  a  perfectly  senseless  habit. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  said  Mrs.  Axson,  "you  don't 
know  very  much  about  it." 

As  this  also  applied  equally  to  the  bootblack  and  me, 
I  left  the  answer  to  him  and  gazed  at  the  top  of  the 
Metropolitan  Tower  across  the  street.  I  hope  Court- 
land  Brown  will  make  a  better  angel  than  Mrs.  Axson. 
Otherwise  he  will  be  lynched. 

I  am  afraid  I  was  unfair  to  Lilly  at  the  time.  I 
thought  that  her  attitude  was  snobbish.  I  still  think 
so.  But  then  there  is  nothing  inherently  blameworthy 
in  snobbishness.  After  all,  it  is  only  a  fear  of  defilement. 
Its  character  depends  on  what  is  protected.  In  this 

76 


PIERRE    VINTON 

case  it  was  the  beautiful.  My  sociological  theories  do 
not  include  the  beautiful,  and  I  cannot  sufficiently 
stretch  them  to  do  so.  To  me  there  is  always  the  same 
irreconcilable  antagonism  which  developed  between 
Mrs.  Axson  and  the  bootblack.  This  is  because,  I  sup- 
pose, my  sociological  theories  are  founded  on  justice, 
and  beauty  is  so  unjust.  One  is  a  principle  of  division 
and  the  other  of  selection. 

The  principle  of  selection  with  Mrs.  Axson  was  ap- 
plied, I  can  certify,  as  far  away  as  her  second  great- 
grandfather and  has  been  applied  as  immediately  as 
the  angle  of  her  hat  brim.  It  was  all  visualized  for  me, 
this  tremendously  complicated  operation  by  Mrs. 
Axson.  The  principle  of  division  was  visualized,  too, 
very  vividly  so,  by  the  bootblack.  I  gave  him  twenty- 
five  cents  to  soothe  his  feelings  and  I  took  Mrs. 
Axson  up-town  for  tea  to  soothe  hers.  The  tea  cost,  I 
remember,  one  dollar  and  a  half. 


77 


VI 

I  MET  Mrs.  Axson  on  the  street  yesterday  while  I 
was  walking  up  from  the  office.  When  I  told  her  what 
I  was  doing  she  said:  "Oh!  Then  you  can  go  shopping 
with  me,"  as  if  it  were  the  most  sequential  thing  in 
the  world. 

She  seemed  quite  eager  about  it  and  accordingly  we 
entered  Altaian's.  Immediately  she  left  me  to  wait  at 
the  door  while  she  bought  stockings.  But,  apparently 
changing  her  mind,  she  came  back  and  asked  me  if  I 
was  going  to  the  Eastmans. 

At  that  moment  I  don't  believe  that  I  had  ever 
heard  of  the  Eastmans.  If  she  had  said  the  East 
Indies  I  should  have  been  taken  less  unawares. 

"Why  should  I  go?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  everybody  is  going." 

I  suggested  that  unless  my  presence  at  the  East- 
mans' would  affect  her  choice  of  stockings  I  should 
like  time  to  think  it  over.  She  smiled  pleasantly  and 
disappeared  in  the  crowd. 

78 


PIERRE    VINTON 

When  she  came  back  I  told  her  I  was  not  going  to 
the  Eastmans.  Whereupon  she  smiled  absently  and 
said  she  must  buy  a  collar.  She  asked  me  if  I  could 
find  the  collar  counter.  I  struck  off  blindly  in  an 
easterly  direction,  steering  by  floor-walkers,  and  was  in 
sight  of  the  collars  when  she  saw  an  umbrella  and 
stopped  to  buy  that.  Then  she  led  me  to  the  ribbon 
counter  and  asked  me  if  I  thought  it  was  a  good  time 
to  buy  "steel."  I  said  it  was  not,  and  she  dropped  the 
subject  and  bought  an  immense  quantity  of  yellow 
ribbon  instead. 

"Now,"  she  said,  "all  I  need  is  a  book-marker,  and 
we  can  go  home." 

I  was  very  anxious  to  go  home,  but  I  do  not  believe 
I  would  ever  have  done  so  if  it  had  depended  upon  my 
finding  a  book-marker  in  Altman's.  Lilly  did  so,  how- 
ever, without  a  single  floor-walker.  Then  she  turned 
to  me  without  a  trace  of  pride  and  remarked:  "Mar- 
cella  is  going  to  the  Eastmans." 

Before  I  could  answer  she  asked  the  clerk  for  a 
purple  silk  book-marker  with  an  ivory  cross. 

Then  I  remembered  that  the  Eastmans  were  man 
and  wife,  and  that  they  were  going  to  give  a  ball  in  a 
sort  of  castle  they  had  built  overlooking  the  park. 

79 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"If  you  will  go  I  will  take  you,"  offered  Lilly  as  we 
walked  away  from  the  ribbon  counter.  Her  conversa- 
tion is  always  crystalline,  clear  in  expression,  but  often 
tangled  in  its  continuity. 

"Thank  you  very  much,  indeed,"  I  answered;  "but 
I  don't  know  the  Eastmans." 

"Nobody  does,"  said  Lilly.  "That's  why  we  are  all 
going." 

"I  want  to  be  original,"  I  answered.  "You  once 
told  me  that  the  only  way  to  surprise  New  York  was 
by  not  doing  things — not  being  a  broker  or  not  having 
a  telephone.  Well,  I  am  not  going  to  the  Eastmans." 

"  You  would  never  be  noticed  one  way  or  the  other," 
said  Lilly.  "That's  why  it  would  be  such  a  good  place 
for  you  and  Marcella  to  get  used  to  seeing  each  other." 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  what  Mrs.  Axson 
said.  There  generally  is.  What  would  Marcella  and  I 
amount  to  in  a  spectacular  way  on  the  floor  of  the 
Eastmans'  half -million-dollar  ballroom?  Scarcely  a 
hundred  dollars,  I  suppose;  not  as  much  as  the  small- 
est mirror. 

"It  is  exactly  suited  to  you  and  Marcella,"  de- 
clared Mrs.  Axson.  "I  would  not  in  the  least  mind 
Tom's  being  there." 

80 


PIERRE    VINTON 

That  is  easily  said  while  Tom  is  somewhere  between 
India  and  Egypt,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Lilly  and  her 
husband  prefer  separate  continents.  As  an  argument, 
however,  it  was  crushing. 

"Why  on  earth,"  I  asked,  when  we  were  got  out  of 
Altaian's,  and  were  walking  up  toward  Lilly's  apart- 
ment, "why  on  earth  should  you  care  about  an  ideal 
situation  for  Marcella  and  me  ? " 

"I  don't  know.  It  interests  me.  You  see  we  are  in 
the  same  boat." 

It  is  curious  I  never  thought  of  this  before.  Lilly's 
marriage  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  peculiarly  un- 
pleasant example  of  this  sort,  and  my  own  something 
quite  different.  I  suppose,  however,  viewed  from  the 
outside,  the  resemblance  is  striking.  Reflecting  upon 
this  disconcerting  discovery,  I  was  rude  enough  to 
walk  half  a  block  without  speaking.  I  was  brought  back 
to  consciousness  by  a  traffic  block  at  Forty-second 
Street.  Lilly  had  disappeared.  I  waited.  She  did  not 
reappear.  I  walked  back  several  blocks,  but  I  did  not 
find  her.  It  was  not  in  the  least  alarming,  but  it  was 
very  annoying.  I  spent  the  better  part  of  an  hour 
patrolling  ten  blocks  of  Fifth  Avenue's  east  pavement, 
and  then  I  went  into  a  drug  store  and  telephoned  to 

81 


PIERRE    VINTON 

her  apartment.  She  had  not  returned.  It  was  the  first 
time  since  I  have  known  Mrs.  Axson,  the  first  time  in 
twenty-five  years,  that  she  has  done  anything  of  this 
sort. 

Later — several  hours  later — I  called  her  again,  this 
time  from  the  club,  and  found  her.  She  said  she  had 
stopped  at  the  Farmers'  Loan  and  Trust  Company  to 
cash  a  check.  I  did  not  ask  her  how  the  Farmers'  Loan 
and  Trust  Company  happened  to  be  open  at  half-past 
four.  I  never  say  things  to  women  they  cannot  deny. 
I  said  instead:  "How  about  the  Eastmans?" 

"Oh,  yes.  Are  you  going?" 

"I  should  be  very  glad  to." 

"I  am  so  glad,"  said  Mrs.  Axson  politely. 

"You  will  keep  to  your  bargain  about  taking  me?" 
I  asked. 

"Of  course.  Call  for  me  about  ten.  We  will  go  to- 
gether." 

"In  the  same  boat,"  I  suggested,  why  I  don't  know, 
except  that  I  am  always  idiotic  when  talking  over  the 
telephone. 

She  laughed  queerly  and  rang  off,  and  then  I  under- 
stood how  I  had  hurt  her  by  my  silence  when  she  sug- 
gested that  she  and  Marcella  were  somehow  sisters 

82 


PIERRE    VINTON 

under  their  skins.  Remorsefully,  I  called  a  florist,  and 
sent  her  a  quantity  of  flowers.  That  was  probably 
almost  as  crude  as  my  silence.  That  is  the  unfailing 
resource  of  a  man  when  he  thinks  he  has  been  a  brute 
to  a  woman — to  spend  money  on  her. 

The  strangest  part  of  it  is  that  the  method  should 
be  so  frequently  successful.  Lilly  was  as  pleased  as  a 
child.  When  I  called  for  her  the  apartment  was  filled 
with  roses.  She  opened  the  door  of  her  bedroom  and 
showed  me  a  bowlful  at  her  bedside. 

"You  never  sent  me  flowers  before  in  your  life," 
she  said. 

"I  thought,"  I  explained,  "that  you  had  a  mind 
above  such  things." 

"My  mind  is  not  above  anything  that  smells  nice 
and  looks  pretty,"  answered  Mrs.  Axson. 

To  speak  the  truth,  mine  was  not  either  at  that 
moment.  It  was,  I  am  afraid,  pretty  completely  oc- 
cupied with  Mrs.  Axson.  She  wore  blue,  and  blue,  I 
fancy,  is  her  color.  It  covered  her  snow-white  neck 
and  arms  like  blue  foam.  She  looked  like  the  wave  of 
a  summer  sea.  I  felt  for  one  giddy  instant  that  the  wave 
of  a  summer  sea  was  about  to  break  over  me  and  took 
a  deep  breath.  A  feeling  of  oppression  as  though  I 


PIERRE    VINTON 

were  physically  overcome  by  all  this  blueness  and 
whiteness — and  when  Lilly  threw  a  great  white  fox  fur 
about  her  throat  she  looked  more  like  a  summer  wave 
than  ever — was  strong  upon  me  when  I  sat  by  her  in 
the  dim-lit  motor. 

She  was  swept  away  from  me  twenty  minutes  later 
at  the  ballroom  door  by  an  Englishman  with  a  tre- 
mendous mustache.  I  saw  him  solemnly  revolving  in 
a  regular  orbit  about  the  ballroom  floor,  while  Lilly 
was  anxiously  searching  the  walls  for  rescue. 

While  I  was  standing  there  in  the  crowd  about  the 
doorway,  a  woman  passing  in  brushed  me  with  her 
arm.  I  stepped  back  to  give  room,  and  as  I  did  so  she 
looked  back  and  we  recognized  each  other,  Marcella 
and  I.  I  fancied  she  stopped  and  I  tried  to  make  my 
way  toward  her,  but  the  crowds  held  me  back,  and 
when  I  reached  the  place  where  she  had  stood  she  was 
gone.  I  saw  her  far  down  the  room  dancing  with  some 
one  I  didn't  know.  A  man  next  me  began  to  brush  my 
sleeve  with  his  glove  where  Marcella's  arm  had  left  a 
great  smear  of  powder. 

I  had  hoped  to  get  it  over  with  there.  It  would  have 
been  so  easy  to  shake  hands,  speak  indifferently,  and 
separate  in  the  crowd,  and  it  might  be  so  difficult 

84 


PIERRE    VINTON 

under  other  circumstances.  And  I  was  quite  self-con- 
fident, too.  Lilly's  dress  was  a  tremendous  assistance. 
But  the  chance  was  gone. 

I  think  Marcella  has  grown  younger.  She  looks  ever 
so  much  younger  than  Mrs.  Axson,  and  she  dances 
with  the  verve  of  a  young  girl.  I  must  have  stood 
staring  at  her,  for  once  when  she  passed  close  by  the 
man  next  to  me  caught  my  glance  and  smiled. 

"She  dances  beautifully.'*, 

"Who?"  I  asked  coldly. 

"That  Mrs.  Vinton." 

I  went  to  the  smoking-room  in  a  bad  humor.  There 
I  found  Malory.  He  needs  a  new  dress  coat.  I  don't 
believe  he  has  bought  one  since  Joan  was  born. 

"What  are  you  doing  here?"  he  wanted  to  know. 

"What  are  you?"  I  asked. 

"Don't  know.  Let's  have  a  drink."  I  imagine  our 
greeting  was  precisely  like  that  of  ninety  out  of  every 
hundred  pair  of  men  present.  I  had  the  drink  and  felt 
somewhat  better. 

"I  saw  Marcella  just  now,"  said  Malory.  "She  is 
here,  you  know." 

"So  I  suppose,  if  you  saw  her." 

"She  is  looking  tremendously  well,"  he  coat&uedL 
85 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Is  she?"  I  answered.  "I  saw  Mrs.  Malory  here,  and 
she  is  looking  very  badly.  I  bet  you  haven't  given  her 
a  new  dress  for  a  year." 

"Don't  know,"  said  Malory.  "Don't  suggest  it  to 
her."  And  he  left  me,  doubtless  thinking  me  in  a  bad 
humor. 

Malory  is  a  self-centred  beast,  like  most  provident 
fathers.  He  is  so  deeply  engaged  with  his  youngest 
son's  distant  future  that  his  wife  can  wear  a  frock  to 
tatters  under  his  very  nose  and  he  would  never  notice 
it.  I  had  seen  Mrs.  Malory  and  she  did  look  pathet- 
ically shabby.  The  contrast  between  Mrs.  Malory  and 
Mrs.  Axson  was  an  unwholesome  example  for  young 
girls,  and  Malory  ought  to  be  ashamed  for  allowing  it 
to  be  presented. 

I  left  the  smoking-room,  too,  for  a  quiet  place  to 
smoke  in  and  promptly  lost  my  way.  The  house  is  a 
perfect  maze  of  narrow  hallways.  Paduan  Gothic  a 
newspaper  man  said  in  describing  it.  What  in  the  name 
of  common  sense  is  Paduan  Gothic,  and  who  would 
build  a  house  of  it  except  some  creature  like  Eastman, 
who,  I  believe,  inadvertently  sat  down  on  a  copper 
mine  in  Colorado?  I  found  a  lift  after  a  while  and  a 
profusely  liveried  flunky  asleep  inside  of  it.  I  woke 

86 


PIERRE    VINTON 

him  up  and  asked  him  where  the  thing  went  to.  He 
said  to  the  roof-garden. 

They  evidently  had  glass-covered  roof-gardens  in 
Padua — probably  during  a  later  Renaissance.  They 
have  gone  out  of  fashion  there  now. 

It  was  a  beautiful  place,  massed  with  plants,  with 
tiny  lights  among  the  leaves,  and  a  cascade  and  foun- 
tain in  the  centre,  and  pink-tiled  walks  intersecting 
each  other  at  every  turn.  Best  of  all,  it  was  absolutely 
deserted,  and  there  was  a  magnificent  view  across  the 
park,  the  tremendous  cliffs  of  the  rows  of  apartment- 
houses  on  the  west  side  blazing  with  light,  and  the 
great  dark  canyons  that  marked  the  streets.  I  found 
a  bench  next  the  glass  behind  the  shrubbery  and 
lit  a  cigarette,  and  wondered  if  my  host  had  ever 
seen  it. 

Sitting  there,  I  heard  presently  the  lift  come  up  and 
the  iron  door  clang,  and  then  Marcella's  long-drawn 
sigh  of  delight — of  delight  at  the  beauty  of  it  all.  I 
did  not  turn.  I  had  lived  with  her  face  before  my  eyes 
of  flesh  for  three  years  and  with  the  memory  of  it 
quite  as  vivid  ever  since,  and  could  picture  it  quite 
perfectly — her  glowing  eyes,  her  lips  just  parted,  and 
the  deep-breathed  "Ooh,"  only  it  used  to  be  sometimes 

87 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Oh,  Pierre,"  and  will  never  be  so  again.  So  I  did  not 
turn. 

Then  I  heard:  "Well  done,  isn't  it?"  and  I  turned 
very  quickly,  for  it  was  Stewart  Dewar's  voice. 

He  was  standing  behind  her,  humpbacked  and  im- 
maculate as  usual. 

"It  is  the  most  wonderful  thing  I  ever  saw  in  my 
life,"  said  Marcella.  That  is  like  Marcella,  to  exag- 
gerate with  a  touch  of  enthusiasm  that  sweeps  you 
along  with  her  and  makes  you  also  think  that  it, 
whatever  it  may  be,  is  the  most  wonderful  thing  in  the 
world.  It  always  affected  me  so,  and  she  always  called 
such  times  our  "moments,"  when,  as  it  were,  our 
souls  stood  on  a  pinnacle  of  exhilaration,  stood  atip- 
toe  and  touched.  If  ever  Marcella  should  read  this  she 
will  understand,  and  though  her  cup  be  brimming  will 
regret,  if  she  regrets  nothing  else  in  the  world,  at  least 
one  of  our  "moments." 

There  had  been  probably  some  error  in  the  construc- 
tion of  one  of  the  pipes  that  fed  the  fountain  and  a 
jet  of  water  spurted  out  beyond  the  stone  basin  and 
fell  splashing  on  the  stone  walk.  Marcella  spied  it 
and  ran  to  the  place  where  the  water  showed  dark 
red  on  the  tiles  and  stuck  out  her  foot  so  that  the 
cool  mist-like  spray  fell  on  her  yellow  satin  slipper. 

88 


PIERRE    VINTON 

There  was  about  her  poise,  standing  one  foot  lifted, 
her  hands  holding  her  skirts  aside,  something  of  that 
wild  grace  that  Marcella  seemingly  can  bring  straight 
from  the  woods  into  a  ballroom  that  makes  the  old 
men  along  the  wall  smile  while  they  watch  her. 

"Better  be  careful,  Mrs.  Vinton,"  said  Dewar,  "you 
will  get  your  feet  wet." 

The  words  or  something  like  them  were  at  my 
tongue's  tip.  It  was  really  a  very  odd  sensation  that 
they  did  not  belong  there.  I  was  screened  by  a  great 
century-plant  (which  this  morning's  papers  say  bloomed 
during  the  night  and  was  one  of  the  features  of  the 
ball).  Looking  between  the  broad  leaves  I  could  see 
quite  plainly  Marcella  draw  back  obediently  and  hold 
out  the  slipper  for  inspection. 

"It's  wet  already,"  she  observed. 

"You  will  probably  catch  cold,"  said  Dewar. 

This  is  true.  She  probably  has  a  bad  cold  this  morn- 
ing. The  remark  irritated  me. 

Marcella  sighed  as  if  she  felt  so  too,  and  led  the  way 
down  the  walk  by  the  dry  side  of  the  fountain. 

In  the  course  of  their  explorations  it  was  highly 
probable,  I  thought,  that  they  would  discover  me. 
Being  intensely  irritated  I  rather  hoped  they  would. 

89 


PIERRE    VINTON 

They  did  not,  however.  The  fountain  fascinated  Mar- 
cella,  and  she  came  back  to  it.  It  is  just  like  her  to 
come  to  a  half-million-dollar  ballroom  and  play  with 
a  tin  fountain. 

"If  I  were  you,"  I  heard  her  say,  "I  would  run 
through  it." 

"It  would  ruin  your  dress,"  objected  Dewar,  who 
seemed  to  be  rather  an  obstructive  critic. 

"It  wouldn't  ruin  yours,"  she  said,  and  came  on 
past  my  century-plant  again  on  the  dry  side. 

I  smiled.  Knowing  Marcella,  I  knew  that  finally  she 
would  get  in  that  fountain  and  by  any  means  except 
force  would  get  him  in  too.  I  also  thought  it  highly 
probable  that  the  experience  would  give  him  a  bad 
cold.  I  lit  another  cigarette  and  broke  off  a  piece  of  the 
century-plant  that  obscured  the  view.  Almost  all  my 
life  it  has  delighted  me  to  watch  Marcella. 

It  occurs  to  me  now  that  I  was  doing  a  rather  un- 
gentlemanly  thing,  playing  the  spy  as  it  were.  What 
Aunt  Louise  calls  the  "instincts  of  a  gentleman" 
should  have  made  me  sneeze  or  otherwise  declare  my- 
self, but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  never  quivered  me 
until  now.  I  am  probably  an  ex  post  facto  gentleman. 

The  smoke  of  my  cigarette  floated  out  from  between 
90 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  leaves  and  curled  and  eddied  above  the  walk  where 
they  passed.  It  was  no  more  impalpable  than  the  spray 
of  the  fountain  that  could  only  be  detected  by  the 
refraction  of  the  lights  and  the  dark-red  stain  on  the 
tiles.  As  the  two  were  coming  toward  me  Marcella 
suddenly  ran  a  little  ahead  of  him,  hesitated  at  the 
edge  of  the  spray,  and  gathered  her  skirt  with  one 
hand  and  curved  the  other  over  her  head  with  the 
curved  upturned  palm  as  a  parapluie  for  the  silk 
flower  in  her  hair.  The  glittering  spray  fell  between 
us  like  a  jewelled  wall  of  gossamer.  Then  she  broke 
through  with  a  little  joyous  laugh,  scattering  a  thou- 
sand tiny  points  of  light. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  she  could  not  have  failed  to 
see  me,  that  she  was  rushing  straight  into  my  arms. 
Instead,  she  stopped  with  strange  suddenness  at  the 
bench  opposite  and  her  yellow  satin  slipper  went 
tumbling  down  the  walk  after  her. 

"Oh !"  she  cried,  "I  have  lost  my  slipper,"  and  she 
caught  hold  of  a  bench  to  steady  her  balance  while 
she  held  her  stockinged  foot  clear  of  the  cold  tiles. 

Dewar  recovered  the  slipper  and  brought  it  back  to 
her.  The  sight  of  Marcella  had  been  like  champagne 
to  me,  golden,  exhilarating.  I  do  not  know  what  it 

91 


PIERRE    VINTON 

had  been  to  him.  I  could  not  see  his  face  as  he  knelt 
to  replace  the  slipper,  but  I  could  see  Marcella's  when 
he  did  and — to  pursue  the  vintage  metaphor — that 
sight  of  Marcella  was  like  absinthe,  green,  maddening, 
flavored  with  wormwood. 

"I  can  do  it  myself,  thank  you,"  she  said  quickly, 
and  with  one  dexterous  movement  she  did,  and  both 
of  them  stood  on  their  feet  again. 

A  stockinged  foot,  and  a  man  on  his  knees  before  it — 
what  is  that,  in  God's  name,  to  set  a  man's  blood  on 
fire?  Scarcely  more  than  common  courtesy,  but  it 
seemed  to  me  the  shamefullest  intimacy.  I  should  like 
to  discuss  this  with  a  conservative  Turk  of  the  sort 
that  bowstring  then*  ladies  for  a  lifted  veil.  I  am 
afraid  an  Occidental  mind  would  not  understand.  A 
jealous  husband  is  the  butt  of  all  human  ridicule. 
What  of  a  jealous  divorcee?  That's  a  witticism  for 
the  high  gods,  flavored  with  that  peculiar  irony  which 
they  are  said  to  relish  most  in  their  humor.  My  only 
excuse  is  that  I  forgot  the  supreme  bench,  I  forgot  the 
legislatures,  and  its  statutes  and  decrees;  I  forgot 
everything  except  my  naked  humanity,  which  still  ap- 
parently persists  in  claiming  Marcella  as  its  own.  It 
is  getting  to  be  a  habit  with  me,  this  form  of  forget- 

92 


PIERRE    VINTON 

fulness.  It  is  a  damnably  dangerous  habit  too.  They 
passed  within  one  yard  of  where  I  was  crouched  among 
the  leaves,  and  if  he  had  taken  her  in  his  arms,  as  she 
had  every  right  to  let  him  do  if  she  so  desired,  perhaps 
he  would  have  never  got  past.  Do  I  not  read  of  such 
things  in  every  newspaper? 

Before  they  reached  the  lift  the  iron  doors  rolled 
back  and  a  crew  of  laughing,  chattering  men  and  women 
burst  into  the  place. 

"  Is  this  the  roof -garden  ?  "  I  heard  a  woman's  voice 
call  out. 

"Oh,  no,"  answered  an  unseen  humorist,  "this  is 
the  forest  primeval." 

Marcella  and  Dewar,  I  think,  went  down  then,  for  I 
did  not  see  them  any  more  and  the  newcomers  swarmed 
everywhere.  I  got  away  too,  and  coming  down  in  the 
mirror-lined  lift  I  saw  that  I  had  cut  my  hands  on 
the  century-plant's  thorns  and  stained  my  shirt-front 
with  little  drops  of  blood. 

This  compelled  me  to  leave  without  seeing  Mrs. 
Axson.  I  shall  probably  hear  of  it  again. 


03 


VII 

MY  aunt,  Mrs.  Grandy  is  having  a  dispute  with  the 
Health  Department.  She  thinks  she  has  smallpox. 
The  Health  Department  thinks  she  has  chicken-pox 
caught  through  a  clothes-basket  from  her  laundress's 
daughter.  It  would  not  surprise  me  if  Aunt  Louise  were 
in  the  right,  though  the  hotel  and  press  and  general 
public  are  on  the  side  of  the  Health  Department.  My 
confidence  in  her  gratifies  her  immensely,  I  am  informed, 
and  it  annoys  Doctor  Symington.  This  I  regard  as  the 
double  duty  of  relatives  in  case  of  illness  to  gratify  the 
patient  and  annoy  the  physician. 

"It  is  positively  ridiculous,"  Doctor  Symington  told 
me  when  I  met  him  on  the  steps  of  the  Buckingham. 
"There  hasn't  been  a  case  of  smallpox  in  New  York 
in  these  circumstances  for  ten  years." 

"And  there  hasn't  been  a  king  in  France  in  sixty 
years,"  I  answered,  "and  my  aunt  is  a  stanch  Roy- 
alist." 

Doctor  Symington  is  in  the  early  thirties  and  an 
94 


PIERRE    VINTON 

enthusiastic  scientist.  He  explained  the  rules  to  me 
that  absolutely  forbid  her  having  smallpox  and  penal- 
ize her  with  chicken-pox.  He  had  very  much  the  best 
of  the  argument;  nevertheless,  I  shall  not  desert  Aunt 
Louise. 

"Have  you  seen  her?"  he  demanded  with  consider- 
able violence. 

"Lord,  no,  man,"  I  answered.  "I  can't.  I  think  she 
has  smallpox." 

Firmly  as  I  uphold  Aunt  Louise,  however,  there  are 
lengths  to  which  I  am  not  prepared  to  go.  She  sent  out 
word  that  I  must  be  vaccinated.  I  sent  in  word  that  I 
had  been  vaccinated,  which  is  relatively  true,  for  I 
was  vaccinated  thirty  odd  years  ago.  If  this  does  not 
relieve  her  anxiety  I  am  afraid  of  the  consequences.  I 
am  a  believer  in  the  smallpox  theory,  but  I  am  not 
a  fanatic  on  the  subject.  I  shall  not  mutilate  myself 
for  my  creed's  sake  like  a  dervish. 

Though  I  do  not  see  her  I  go  daily  to  ask  after  her. 
Sometimes  I  am  admitted  to  the  sitting-room,  which 
is  shut  off  from  the  other  rooms  by  a  great  white  sheet 
soaked  in  carbolic  acid.  That  sheet  is  Aunt  Louise's 
banner  of  defiance.  Behind  it  she  is  impenetrably  in- 
trenched against  the  Health  Department.  Fraulein 

95 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Hummell  lifts  it  reverentially  when  she  enters  to  bring 
me  news  of  my  plague-stricken  kinswoman.  The 
Fraulein  has  done  her  mistress's  lightest  bidding  for 
thirty-one  years,  and  is,  of  course,  like  myself  a  firm 
adherent  of  the  smallpox  theory.  The  Fraulein  is 
genuinely  distressed  by  my  aunt's  illness,  which  is 
queer  because  while  Aunt  Louise  lives  Fraulein  Hum- 
mell's  life  will  be  an  unceasing  and  none-too-well-re- 
warded servitude,  and  after  Aunt  Louise's  death  it 
will  become  a  well-earned  and  dignified  independence. 
Poor  Hummell  happens  to  prefer  the  servitude  and  to 
anticipate  relief  with  apprehension.  Her  mistress  says 
she  is  awkward,  stupid,  and  a  Lutheran.  She  is  also 
ill  treated,  long-suffering,  and  an  angel.  Unfortu- 
nately she  is  as  ugly  as  the  practice  of  virtue  and  rigid 
economy  can  make  a  woman,  so  that  my  admiration 
always  remains  unexpressed  in  her  presence.  It  would 
be  impossible  to  compliment  a  woman  as  ugly  as 
Fraulein  Hummell  on  anything  without  appearing  to 
joke  in  extremely  bad  taste.  She  suggests  La  Gioconda 
caricatured  at  full  length.  There  is  the  same  heavy 
face  and  severely  simple  coiffure,  but  the  eyes  are 
hidden  behind  thick  glasses  and  the  uncertain,  un- 
ceasing smile  is  burlesqued  by  thick  lips.  Her  waist  is 

96 


PIERRE    VINTON 

cylindrical,  and  about  it  her  skirt  is  draped  like  the 
canvas  about  a  shower-bath.  Above,  her  billowy  bosom 
heaves  like  a  bellows  and  produces  a  deep  bass  tone 
which  she  forever  tries  to  reduce  to  a  whisper. 

We  conversed  on  the  public  side  of  the  sheet  con- 
cerning the  illness,  which  she  loyally  represents  as 
grave — I  in  a  guilty  whisper,  the  Fraulein  in  her  tre- 
mendous basso  profundo.  I  scarcely  have  ever  spoken 
to  her  in  my  life  except  concerning  her  mistress,  and  I 
have  been  speaking  to  her  for  thirty  years.  I  realize 
now  that  I  have  always  thought  of  her  as  a  certain  mani- 
festation of  my  aunt  rather  than  as  an  individuality. 
She  has  represented,  as  it  were,  Aunt  Louise  too-ill- 
to-see-me,  and  Aunt  Louise  dressing  and  Aunt  Louise 
taking  a  nap. 

I  had  never  realized  this.  That,  I  suppose,  is  why  I 
did  not  realize  that  the  first  day  of  Aunt  Louise's 
segregation  was  the  first  time,  too,  that  I  had  seen  the 
Fraulein  alone  for  almost  two  years.  We  talked  of  the 
contagion  in  the  room  with  the  carbolized  sheet,  and 
reciprocally  fortified  our  mutual  faith  in  the  con- 
tagion's existence. 

"Mr.  Bierre,"  said  the  Fraulein  as  I  was  going 
out. 

97 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Yes,"  I  turned  in  the  doorway  and  saw  her  stand- 
ing in  the  other  doorway  against  the  carbolized  sheet. 
At  the  distance  her  thick  glasses  were  little  pools  of 
reflected  light. 

"Mr.  Bierre,  how  iss  Miss  Marcella?" 

"I  don't  know,  Fraulein,"  I  said.  "You  see,  I  don't 
see  Miss  Marcella  any  more." 

"Ja,  I  know,"  she  answered.  She  paused  and  her 
bosom  seemed  to  heave  as  I  had  never  seen  it,  and  by 
the  booming  tremulo  in  her  voice  when  she  spake  I 
knew  she  was  trying  to  speak  softly.  "Ja,  I  know," 
she  repeated.  The  pools  of  light  glimmered  and  danced. 
"And  I  am  sorry  mit  you,  Mr.  Bierre." 

It  was  the  voice  of  a  fog-horn,  but,  nevertheless, 
those  were  words  that  nobody  else  has  ever  been  kind 
enough  to  speak  to  me.  I  went  back  with  the  inten- 
tion of  shaking  hands  with  the  Fraulein,  but  she  had 
lifted  the  sheet  and  gone  and  I  was  alone  with  only 
a  very  strong  smell  of  carbolic  acid. 

Why  my  aunt  wishes  to  have  smallpox  I  do  not 
know.  It  does  not  interest  me  inherently,  and  extrin- 
sically  it  is,  of  course,  none  of  my  business.  I  confine 
myself  to  carrying  out  her  wishes  as  far  as  possible. 
She  is  somewhat  like  an  inspiration  in  that  she  must  be 

98 


PIERRE    VINTON 

accepted  in  the  grand  manner.  The  details  of  Aunt 
Louise  are  apt  to  bewilder  the  average  intellect.  She 
is  a  good  woman.  That  is  an  article  of  faith  with  me, 
and  as  is  the  case  with  most  articles  of  faith  it  is  main- 
tained by  constant  repetition.  I  repeat  it  every  time  I 
leave  her.  If  I  said  it  not  I  don't  know  what  I  should 
say  instead.  I  suggested  to  Courty  that  he  try  the 
formula  as  a  cure  for  the  intense  dislike  he  has  for  her. 
With  the  disconcerting  docility  which  he  has  developed 
he  has  adopted  the  suggestion. 

"How  is  your  aunt — who  is  a  good  woman  and  has 
smallpox — to-day?"  he  asks  me  every  evening  as  he 
unfolds  his  napkin  at  dinner. 

"She  is  better,  thank  you,  Courtland,"  I  reply. 
"The  disease  is  of  the  least  malignant  type." 

The  Fraulein  and  I  talk  in  very  much  the  same  man- 
ner. I  would  not  be  surprised  if  Aunt  Louise  adopted 
the  manner  in  talking  to  herself  about  it.  What  a 
mystery  she  is,  the  Fraulein !  To  me  her  smile  is  more 
cryptic  now  than  that  painted  on  the  lips  of  her  pro- 
totype. It  never  changes  its  unexplained  detachment 
from  the  mutability  of  things;  it  is  almost  unintelli- 
gent. But  I  know  very  much  better  than  this. 

Yesterday  the  Fraulein  herself  opened  the  door  of 
99 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  apartment  for  me.  All  was  in  darkness.  She  apolo- 
gized. 

"I  haf  not  lid  the  lights,"  she  explained.  "You  go 
indo  de  sitting-room,  Mr.  Bierre,  und  I  vill  see  aboud 
it."  And  she  pattered  off  up  the  hall  to  find  the  switch. 
I  lifted  the  portieres  of  the  sitting-room  and  entered. 
The  room  seemed  to  be  strangely  still,  and  I  stopped 
with  that  curious  feeling  that  somebody  was  near  me 
and  holding  his  breath. 

"Is  there  somebody  here?"  I  asked.  The  perfect 
silence  which  was  my  only  answer  seemed  to  deepen. 
In  the  dim  reflection  from  the  windows  I  could  make 
out  the  black  forms  of  furniture,  and  there  was  a  heavy 
smell  of  carbolic  acid  in  the  air,  and  nothing  else  ex- 
cept the  eerie  silence  as  of  some  one  holding  his  breath. 
Where  was  Hummell;  why  was  the  place  dark;  what 
had  happened  ? 

Then  from  out  the  shadow  of  a  bookcase  next  me 
I  saw  a  figure  moving  toward  the  door,  moving  noise- 
lessly and  close  to  the  wall.  I  jumped  forward,  seized 
the  figure,  and  felt  a  woman's  clothing. 

I  had  my  arm  around  her,  and  with  my  right  hand 
I  had  grasped  her  arm  between  her  glove  and  the  short 
sleeve.  The  feel  of  this  mysterious  woman's  flesh  in 

100 


PIERRE    VINTON 

my  hand  and  her  body  under  my  arm  in  the  dark  was 
like  the  scent  of  an  old  familiar  perfume  or  the  sound 
of  a  half-forgotten  melody.  By  the  touch  I  recognized 
her.  It  was  Marcella. 

She  broke  free  in  that  instant  and  I  heard  somebody 
out  in  the  hall  say,  "Ach,  here  dis,"  and  the  light 
flashed  on.  There  was  Marcella,  dressed  in  brown, 
holding  her  hat,  and  her  other  arm  held  up  defensively, 
and  I  leaning  against  the  bookcase.  I  don't  think  I 
could  have  lifted  my  hand  as  high  as  my  head  as  she 
did  for  my  life's  sake. 

I  believe  if  every  impression  I  have  of  the  woman 
who  used  to  be  my  wife  were  to  pass  away  one  by 
one,  according  to  the  degree  of  their  intensity,  the  last 
which  would  pass  away  would  be  the  impression  of 
her  gracefulness.  She  has  very  slim  ankles  and  a  very 
slender  throat  and  rather  wide  hips  and  a  deep  bosom, 
and  she  balances  like  a  billiard-ball,  as  if  any  impulse 
would  send  her  moving  evenly  in  any  direction.  She 
has,  more  than  any  man  or  woman  I  have  ever  seen, 
the  beauty  of  perfect  balance.  She  was  a  little  fright- 
ened, and  I  think  graceful  things  are  most  graceful 
when  they  are  a  little  frightened. 

"I  came  to  ask  for  Aunt  Louise,  for  Mrs.  Grandy," 
101 


PIERRE    VINTON 

she  hurried  on,  "and  Hummell  and  I  got  to  talking, 
and  when  you  rang  we  didn't  know  what  it  was  until 
I  heard  your  voice."  She  paused,  out  of  breath. 

"I  hope,"  I  began,  "I  hope  you  had  a  pleasant 
talk." 

"Oh,  Pierre,"  said  Marcella  desperately,  "don't  be 
an  idiot." 

"I  can't  help  it,  Marcella,"  I  answered,  "unless  I 
open  one  of  the  windows  and  let  some  of  this  damned 
smell  out." 

The  room  was  frightfully  close  from  the  odor  of 
that  absurd  sheet  over  the  door,  and  I  stood  for  a 
moment  at  the  open  window — long  enough  for  a 
crippled  taxicab  to  crawl  out  of  sight  behind  the 
Cathedral.  The  fresh  air  braced  me  up  tremendously, 
and  when  I  turned  I  saw  Marcella  putting  her  vanity 
box  back  into  her  big  black  muff.  The  box  had  evi- 
dently done  as  much  for  her. 

"I  have  been  expecting  this  for  a  long  time,"  I  said, 
"but  not  quite  in  this  way." 

"It  was  an  awful  way,"  said  Marcella. 

"Won't  you  sit  down?"  I  pushed  forward  a  chair, 
but  she  shook  her  head  and  intimated  by  a  gesture 
that  she  was  on  her  way  to  the  door. 

102 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  am  glad  Mrs.  Grandy  is  so  much  better,"  she  said. 
"Hummell  tells  me  that  she  is  out  of  danger."  There 
she  stopped.  I  suppose  she  realized  as  I  did  that  we 
could  not  exchange  inanities  about  a  woman  at  whom 
we  had  laughed  together  a  thousand  times.  In  truth, 
we  could  not  exchange  anything,  because  we  possessed 
too  much  in  common.  We  had  sat  together  in  that 
room  innumerable  times  and  talked  of  each  piece  of 
furniture  in  it.  There  was  not  a  habit  of  dress  or  speech 
or  gesture  used  by  one  of  us  that  had  not  been  ad- 
mired or  criticised  by  the  other.  Recognitions  of  this 
sort  were  breaking  between  us  every  moment  like  tiny 
electric  sparks,  and  each  was  conscious  of  the  other's 
recognition.  I  felt  her  glance  at  my  watch-chain  which 
she  had  given  me,  and  I  saw  her  thrust  her  arm  deeper 
into  her  muff  to  hide  the  bracelet  I  had  given  her. 
The  vanity  box  I  had  given  her  too.  The  high,  thin 
collar  she  wore  was  the  mode  I  had  always  praised, 
because  it  emphasized  the  slender  grace  of  her  throat. 
She  was  as  conscious  of  that  collar  about  her  throat 
as  if  it  were  a  stiffness  in  the  muscles.  I  felt  as  though  I 
blushed  when  I  remembered  I  was  wearing  a  knitted 
red  waistcoat  she  had  made  me.  And,  truly,  these 
recognitions  were  only  sparks  from  the  great  current 

103 


PIERRE    VINTON 

of  primal  recognition  that  flowed  from  me  to  Mar- 
cella  and  from  Marcella  to  me. 

We  talked,  as  it  were,  caught  the  sparks  that  leaped 
off  from  the  current  when  they  were  cold,  and  tossed 
the  dead  black  specks  back  and  forth  as  words. 

"I  caught  a  glimpse  of  you  the  other  day,"  I  said 
faintly. 

Marcella  started.  "Why  didn't  you  speak?"  she 
asked. 

Why  didn't  I?  Good  Lord!  I  could  not  explain.  She 
understood  partly  and  tried  to  rush  past  her  mistake. 
"I  scarcely  ever  get  to  town,"  she  hurried  on,  "and 
when  I  do  I  am  always  in  a  terrible  rush.  There  are 
such  a  number  of  things  to  do  for  the  family." 

"How  is  Mr.  Barton?"  I  asked,  carefully  avoiding 
her  mistake  about  Aunt  Louise. 

"Very  well.  He  often  asks  about  you."  She  stopped 
and  looked  a  little  frightened. 

I  smiled.  "Be  sure  to  say  that  I  asked  for  him,"  I 
returned. 

"Yes,  I  will.  But  how  are  you,  Pierre?" 

"Oh,  I  am  doing  splendidly.  Courty  Brown  is  living 
with  me,  you  know.  We  are  keeping  bachelor's  hall 
up  there." 

104 


PIERRE    VINTON 

It  must  have  been  that  Marcella  had  a  vision  of 
how  Courty  and  I  would  keep  any  sort  of  hall,  for  she 
winced  a  little.  "And  how  is  Habliston?"  she  asked 
quickly. 

She  should  not  have  mentioned  Habliston.  We  could 
talk  of  relatives  safely  enough,  but  Habliston  was  our 
first  servant.  How  upset  he  would  be  if  he  learned  that 
he  was  a  sentiment.  "He  is  just  as  good  as  he  used  to 
be,"  I  answered  ruthlessly. 

"Is  he  ?"  she  said  slowly  and  was  silent,  stroking  her 
muff. 

Our  conversation  suggested  a  man  walking  on  knives, 
an  unskilful  man  who  was  continually  cutting  him- 
self. 

"It  was  awfully  kind  of  you  to  call  here.  It  will 
please  her  tremendously  when  she  hears  of  it." 

"She  is  really  out  of  danger,  then?"  Marcella  asked. 
"Hummell  seems  to  think  so." 

"She  never  was  in  it,"  I  answered. 

"Everything  looks  like  illness,"  said  Marcella,  mov- 
ing toward  the  door.  The  air  from  the  open  window 
blew  against  the  carbolized  sheet  fastened  over  the 
inner  door  and  made  it  flap  against  the  woodwork. 
"That  quite  frightened  me  when  I  came  in." 

105 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"That,"  I  said,  "is  just  ridiculous.  No  use  in  the 
world." 

"It  served  one  purpose,"  she  answered  dryly.  "But 
for  it  I  should  have  got  out  by  that  door." 

"I  am  very  glad  you  didn't,"  I  said. 

"Don't  talk  like  that,  Pierre,"  she  exclaimed. 

"I  mean,"  I  explained,  "it  had  to  happen  soon  or 
late." 

"Yes,"  she  agreed.  "It  had  to  happen.  It  was  in 
the  nature  of  things,  as  you  would  say." 

I  would  not  say  anything  of  the  sort  because  what 
impressed  me  most  about  the  situation  was  its  utter 
unnaturalness.  But  I  did  not  say  so  to  Marcella.  I 
asked  her,  instead,  if  she  was  going  to  Babylon  that 
night. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "I  am  going  to  stay  in  town 
for  the  night." 

"Have  you  a  cab  here?" 

"Yes.  Good  night." 

She  turned  and  went  out  by  the  door  I  held  open  for 
her  with  exactly  the  smile  she  used  to  give  the  last 
departing  dinner  guest  before  she  turned  to  me  alone 
together  in  our  home. 

It  was  exquisitely  painful.  It  was  ridiculous  also,  we 
106 


PIERRE    VINTON 

two  trying  to  pretend  that  the  past  was  dead  and  we 
had  buried  it.  "God  has  no  power  over  the  past," 
says  the  proverb.  What  could  Marcella  and  I  do  with 
it?  We  had  never  before  understood  how  many  ties 
bound  us.  We  had  never  before  felt  so  completely 
married.  Whatever  may  be  said  of  divorce,  it  is,  at  any 
rate,  an  utterly  inadequate  institution. 


107 


VIII 

X       "-; 
IF  Stewart  Dewar  was  a  toy  I  think  I  should  like  to 

break  him  open  to  see  how  he  worked  inside,  as  little 
Tommy  Axson  does  his  toys. 

I  fancy  he  is  cultivating  my  acquaintance,  for  I  find 
him  constantly  in  my  path.  He  telephones  me  at  the 
office  on  comparatively  trivial  causes  and  is  generally 
attentive  at  the  club  whenever  I  go  there.  I  dined  there 
last  night  and  alone,  and  he  asked  if  he  might  dine  at 
my  table. 

He  has  the  blackest  hair  I  have  ever  seen  on  a  man's 
head.  Sometimes  a  woman's  heavily  massed  coiffure 
gives  the  same  impression  of  blue-blackness  "as  if 
cigarette  smoke  had  been  blown  through  it,"  but  I 
never  saw  any  other  man's  close-cropped  hair  achieve 
the  same  effect.  When  he  crossed  the  dining-room  to 
my  table  I  noticed  he  was  scarcely  as  tall  as  the  high- 
backed  chairs  he  walked  between.  This  is  partly  due, 
I  suppose,  to  his  wretched  carriage.  He  stoops  so  that 
a  cursory  glance  might  easily  give  the  impression  that 

108 


PIERRE    VINTON 

-r^>     '  ^    . 

his  back  was  not  straight.  When,  remembering  this, 
I  compare  him  with  the  other  small  men  I  know,  it  in 
itself  indicates  a  marked  personality.  The  other  small 
men,  without  exception  I  think,  stretch  their  inches 
to  the  utmost  and  have,  in  consequence,  a  sparrow-like 
erectness  of  carriage.  A  short  man  who  stoops  must 
have  a  very  busy  mind. 

He  attracts  a  great  many  people.  I  suppose  he  has 
what  is  meant  by  a  magnetic  personality.  But  he  at- 
tracts like  a  magnet;  what  he  influences  only  touches 
the  outside  of  him.  That  is  why  I  should  like  to  break 
him  open  and  see  what  is  inside.  So,  in  a  way,  he  at- 
tracts me,  too,  I  suppose.  Since  I  can't  see  his  interior 
mechanism,  I  enjoy  watching  him  work  from  the  out- 
side; he  is  so  perfectly  adjusted  to  the  circumstances 
of  his  existence;  he  works  so  smoothly  in  his  particular 
groove.  He  fits  into  New  York  life  as  exactly  and  works 
in  it  with  as  little  friction  as  a  piston-rod  in  a  cylinder. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  he  asked  me  after 
dinner.  He  was  drinking  brandy  and  maraschino  in 
his  coffee. 

I  think  if  I  had  answered  truthfully  I  would  have 
said  I  was  going  to  get  rid  of  him.  I  answered  instead 
that  I  did  not  know  and  suggested  a  play. 

109 


PIERRE    VINTON 

He  said  they  were  all  dull  and  suggested  bridge  in 
his  rooms. 

I  accepted.  I  wanted  to  see  him  work,  and  gambling 
is  his  life's  work.  Bridge  would  only  be  a  method  of 
passing  the  time,  but  I  thought  it  would  be  interest- 
ing to  watch  the  motor  run  even  if  the  clutch  were 
out. 

Dewar  lives  on  the  eleventh  floor  of  the  Hotel 
Gotham.  They  are  magnificent  rooms.  There  is  no 
such  sweep  of  space  in  all  my  house  as  he  has  in  his 
apartment,  and  the  view  from  his  windows  must  be 
superb,  even  at  night.  We  caught  no  glimpse  of  it, 
however,  because  the  shades  were  carefully  drawn. 
It  seems  it  is  against  the  law  in  New  York  to  gamble 
with  the  shades  up.  We  got  there  by  a  taxicab  and 
an  electric  lift,  and  summoned  Norman  Vaux  and  a 
friend  of  Dewar's  named  Houston  by  telephone. 

Houston,  who  was  a  frequent  visitor  to  the  apart- 
ment, apparently,  proved  rather  an  expert  with  the 
push-buttons,  of  which  I  think  the  place  contains 
probably  one  hundred  and  fifty.  He  manipulated  them 
with  great  skill  and  produced  wonderful  effects  in 
light  and  water  and  hallboys.  There  were  electric 
lights  in  the  lamps,  clocks,  vases,  and  picture-frames, 

110 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  iced  water  in  the  walls  of  the  bedroom,  bathroom, 
drawing-room,  and  library — all  under  the  control  of  a 
push-button.  He  produced  one  effect  which  I  do  not 
know  that  he  fully  appreciated.  He  picked  up  Dewar's 
mail  in  the  hall  and  threw  it  down  on  the  card-table 
between  us.  It  was  only  one  letter,  addressed  in  Mar- 
cella's  handwriting.  Dewar  stupidly  stuffed  it  in  his 
pocket  so  hastily  that  I  could  not  but  understand  that 
he  recognized  the  hand  too.  Houston  at  this  looked  at 
me  and  winked. 

We  played  until  after  midnight,  and  Dewar  played 
well.  The  points  were  rather  high  and  Houston,  who 
had  lost  pretty  consistently,  grew  worried,  and  at  one 
time  when  he  had  lost  nearly  a  thousand  dollars  and 
when  the  score  was  read  off  he  showed  it  very  plainly. 
Vaux,  who  was  his  partner  at  the  time,  noticed  it,  I 
saw,  but  Dewar  apparently  saw  nothing.  At  any  rate, 
he  took  advantage  of  his  nervousness  and  pressed  him 
mercilessly. 

At  the  end  he  paid  up  with  a  check  and  left,  de- 
clining supper.  Dewar,  to  whose  order  the  check  was 
drawn,  stood  holding  it  in  his  fingers  with  a  curious 
little  smile  for  a  while  after  the  door  had  closed.  Then 
he  slowly  tore  it  across  and  dropped  it  on  the  floor. 

Ill 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"It's  no  earthly  good,  you  know,"  he  explained. 

Yet  he  had  pursued  that  man  like  an  enemy. 

"Why  did  you  ask  him?"  said  Vaux.  "I  don't  care 
about  playing  with  that  sort  very  much,  you  know." 

"Why,  there  was  nobody  else,"  said  Dewar  simply. 

He  insisted  on  our  having  supper  with  him,  I  am 
glad  to  say,  because  I  learned  that  he  ate  bread  and 
meat.  I  had  rather  suspected  that  he  fed  on  steel 
filings  and  drank  out  of  a  Leyden  jar. 

I  wonder  what  face  he  turns  toward  a  woman  when 
he  loves  her.  I  can  not  imagine  Dewar  in  love.  He  is 
quite  famous  for  his  mistresses,  I  am  told. 

This  I  can  perfectly  understand,  but  anything  more 
baffles  my  imagination.  What,  for  instance,  could  he 
be  to  a  woman  like  Marcella,  who  is  the  most  primeval 
personality  I  have  ever  known.  Would  the  intricate 
mechanism  which  animates  him  attract  simplicity  as 
a  mystery  or  would  it  repel  ?  Apparently  it  attracts,  as 
she  writes  to  him. 

•  •••••  •  • 

I  to-day  had  the  pleasure  of  offering  a  position  in 
my  office  to  Mr.  Lawrence  Hastings,  which  was  cheer- 
fully rejected.  He  is  on  the  immediate  highroad  to 
fortune,  he  told  me.  He  has  hopes  of  being  "taken  in" 

112 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  firm  which  at  present  employs  him,  and  as  I  was  not 
prepared  to  take  him  in  my  partnership,  he  thought  it 
best  to  stay  where  he  was. 

I  sincerely  hope  it  may  be  best.  Brown,  who  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter,  says  he  hopes  he  will 
starve.  I  tell  Brown  I  hope  he,  Brown,  doesn't  mean 
what  he  says,  which  very  naturally  arouses  Brown  to 
resounding  rage. 

"This,"  says  Brown,  "comes  of  spending  evenings 
with  that  little  Gilbert  girl." 

He  dislikes  everything  and  everybody  I  like.  I  think 
he  would  stop  drinking  finally  and  forever  if  I  got  drunk. 

"I  am  trying,"  I  told  him  with  a  touch  of  pathos, 
"  to  put  a  deserving  young  fellow  in  the  way  of  making 
a  beautiful  young  girl  happy,  and  you  insinuate  I  am 
a  fool." 

"Not  so  much  about  the  deserving  young  fellow," 
replied  Brown. 

"What  do  you  mean  by  that?"  I  asked  the  growl- 
ing old  cynic. 

"People  don't  help  others  to  beautiful  wives,"  said 
Brown,  "they  help  themselves." 

So  much  for  philanthropy.  This  is  the  interpretation 
of  my  first  efforts  in  the  field.  Confound  the  science  1 

113 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Not  only  I  do  not  understand  it,  neither  do  other 
people. 

Aunt  Louise  is  better.  She  is  reconciled  to  the  Health 
Department.  They  have  agreed  to  let  bygones  be  by- 
gones, either  smallpox  or  chicken-pox,  and  compromised 
on  convalescence. 

I  have  been  admitted  to  see  her  in  a  fresh,  thoroughly 
disinfected  room.  She  was  sitting  up  in  bed  in  a  lace- 
trimmed  pink  dressing-sacque,  and  her  hair  dressed  a  la 
guillotine. 

"Well,  Pierre,"  she  said  languidly  when  I  entered, 
and  turned  her  cheek  to  be  kissed. 

"Well,  Aunt  Louise,"  I  answered  when  I  had  kissed 
it,  "it  has  been  a  close  shave,  hasn't  it?" 

She  shook  her  head  dolefully.  "Don't  let  us  talk  of 
it,"  she  requested. 

I  assented  quickly  and  pulled  up  a  chair  to  the  bed- 
side. 

"Tell  me  what  has  happened  while  I  have  been  ly- 
ing here,"  she  asked. 

None  of  the  sort  of  events  which  Aunt  Louise  re- 
ferred to  have  happened — only  wars  and  earthquakes 
and  such  things. 

114 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  hear  that  Marcella  called  to  ask  for  me  while  I 
was  ill,"  she  went  on. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "she  did." 

"It  was  very  kind  of  her.  What  does  she  call  her- 
self now?" 

"She  calls  herself  Mrs.  Vinton,"  I  explained. 

"Mrs.  Pierre  Etienne  de  Meilhac  Vinton,"  Aunt 
Louise  murmured.  "That  is  a  very  good  name." 

"No,"  I  answered.  "Marcella  Barton  Vinton." 

"Oh,"  she  said.  "She  was  a  Miss  Barton,  wasn't 
she?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "she  was.  Didn't  she  leave  a  card?" 

"My  dear  boy,"  exclaimed  Aunt  Louise  reproach- 
fully, "I  have  not  seen  any  cards." 

I  apologized  for  my  mistake.  It  was  a  natural  one 
because  there  was  a  trayf ul  of  cards  at  the  foot  of  the 
bed. 

"Pierre,"  she  went  on,  "I  have  been  thinking  about 
you  a  great  deal.  I  hope  you  will  marry  again." 

I  don't  think  I  was  ever  so  astonished  in  my  life.  I 
was  surprised  when  Aunt  Louise  had  not  protested 
volubly  against  the  divorce,  but  that  she  should  go  so 
far  as  to  suggest  remarriage  was  almost  incredible. 

"Haven't  you  ever  thought  about  it?"  she  suggested, 
115 


PIERRE    VINTON 

taking  a  pill-box  from  the  stand  by  her  bed  and  pop- 
ping a  pill  into  her  mouth.  Then  she  gesticulated 
eagerly  toward  the  water-bottle.  While  she  swallowed 
the  pill  I  regained  my  self-control. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  have  thought  about  it,  but  I  never 
thought  about  your  thinking  about  it." 

She  drew  the  counterpane  closer  about  her  waist  and 
smiled  affectionately,  as  if  she  was  rather  pleased  by 
my  discovery  of  her  thinking  powers. 

"Well,  I  have  thought  about  it,"  she  continued. 
"In  the  first  place,  I  think  you  owe  it  to  your  fam- 

ay." 

"That  is  to  you,"  I  put  in;  "you  are  all  the  family 
I  have." 

"Then,  I  think,"  she  continued  without  regarding 
my  interruption,  "I  think  you  owe  it  to  yourself.  I 
am  old  enough  and  close  enough  to  you  to  tell  you 
these  things." 

"A  young  man  placed  as  you  are  now,"  said  Aunt 
Louise,  "is  very  apt  to  form  an  unfortunate  connec- 
tion. Poor  Phillipe !  His  life  has  been  wrecked  by  such 
a  connection.  He  still  refuses  to  give  the  woman  up.  I 
know  of  half  a  dozen  others.  I  used  to  be  horrified  by 
such  things,  but  now  I  can  accept  them  naturally.  I 

116 


PIERRE    VINTON 

remember  mamma's  telling  us  that  her  father  (the 
Count  de  Meilhac  de  Berne)  used  to  say:  'A  woman 
can  wear  chastity  openly  like  a  jewel,  but  with  a  man 
it  is  hidden  like  the  shirt  of  Nessus.'" 

Only  a  chaste  woman  could  have  achieved  my  aunt's 
impression  of  professional  detachment.  A  man  would 
have  spoken  with  hesitation  or  bravado.  It  requires,  I 
suppose,  constant  reflection  upon  a  subject  to  acquire 
this  attitude  of  scientific  impersonality  toward  it. 
Aunt  Louise  might  have  been  Galileo  talking  about 
apples. 

I  was  embarrassed,  for  women  always  embarrass  me 
in  such  matters;  but  I  nodded  affirmatively  and  said 
that  her  grandfather  must  have  been  an  uncommonly 
wise  old  fellow. 

"He  was,"  she  replied.  "But  this  is  more  or  less  by 
the  way.  My  chief  reason  for  talking  to  you  is  that  I 
know  you  are  going  to  be  married  by  some  woman, 
and  I  want  you  to  get  the  proper  sort  this  time." 

"But,  my  dear  Aunt  Louise,"  I  objected,  "even  ad- 
mitting that  I  got  the  wrong  sort  last  time,  how  can 
you,  a  good  Catholic,  advise  me  to  marry  when  you 
cannot  believe  me  free?" 

She  looked  at  me  in  equal  surprise  and  said:  "But, 
117 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Pierre,  as  a  good  Catholic,  I  don't  think  you  have  been 
married  at  all." 

This  really  cleared  up  the  situation  in  a  twinkling. 
In  fact,  the  rapidity  of  the  clearing  up  quite  took  my 
breath  away. 

"Didn't  you  ever  know  it?"  she  asked  triumphantly. 

"Of  course,  I  knew  it,"  I  answered.  Literally  I  an- 
swered truthfully,  but  in  the  spirit  I  lied  like  a  sailor. 
It  had  never  occurred  to  me  before  that  Marcella  and 
I  had  never  been  married. 

Our  conversation  was  cut  short  by  Hummell,  who 
brought  in  the  masseuse  and  an  immense  number  of 
towels,  and  I  left.  Aunt  Louise  bade  me  good-by  in 
an  absent-minded  way  and  told  me  to  think  over 
what  she  had  said. 

It  was  a  good  suggestion,  because  what  she  had  said 
was  the  unanimous  opinion  of  two  hundred  and  fifty 
million  of  other  people.  The  unanimous  opinion  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  million  civilized  people  is  always 
worth  thinking  about,  at  any  rate.  A  verdict  of  such  a 
size  should  not  be  disregarded  without  reflection.  On 
the  whole,  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  my  aunt's 
point  of  view,  and  as  I  stood  on  the  Buckingham's 
steps  and  looked  up  at  the  Cathedral  across  the  street 

118 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  said  it — that  it  would  have  prevented  a  vast  amount 
of  bother  if  I  had  been  married  at  Saint  Patrick's  in- 
stead of  at  Saint  Stephen's. 

Anyway,  the  theory  is  a  very  valuable  addition  to 
my  collection  of  matrimonial  hypotheses.  I  am  rather 
proud  of  the  collection,  particularly  so  when  I  recall 
how  limited  my  field  of  exploration  has  been.  It  begins 
with  Father  Witherspoon,  who  does  not  believe  I  have 
been  divorced,  and  ends  with  Aunt  Louise,  who  does 
not  believe  I  have  been  married,  and  includes  Lilly 
Axson,  who  believes  I  have  been  both.  That  is  a  fairly 
complete  outline  of  the  situation.  I  may  fill  it  up  some- 
what, but  I  do  not  believe  I  can  enlarge  its  scope. 


110 


riABLISTON  awoke  me  this  morning  with  preter- 
natural solemnity. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked.  "If  it  is  as  bad  as  it  looks  I 
won't  get  up."  I  got  this  idea  from  my  aunt,  who 
never  gets  up  unless  the  world  is  to  her  liking. 

"It  is  Mr.  Brown,  sir." 

"Where  is  he?" 

Habliston  only  shook  his  head. 

He  doesn't  know,  neither  does  the  club,  nor  the 
police,  nor  the  Turkish  baths,  nor  any  of  the  receivers 
of  lost  spirits  that  go  astray  in  city  streets.  He  will 
probably  return  of  his  own  accord  within  twenty-four 
hours.  Knowing  Courty,  I  can  imagine  an  even  longer 
absence  resulting  in  a  safe  return.  Meanwhile  Hab- 
liston's  agitation  is  a  powerful  sedative  to  me.  His 
imagination  is  a  crude,  untrained  force,  overfed  by 
his  afternoon  paper,  and  it  hurries  him  from  an  ex- 
treme to  its  opposite  like  a  tennis-ball  between  racquets. 
He  does  not  know  whether  to  rush  out  and  buy  a 
fatted  calf  or  drag  the  rivers.  My  superior  education 

120 


PIERRE    VINTON 

permits  me  to  imagine  the  return  of  Brown  neither 
drowned  nor  hungry. 

What  annoys  me  most  is  that  somehow  the  news  has 
got  out  at  the  club  as,  I  suppose,  the  results  of  Hablis- 
ton's  telephone  inquiries.  Courty  is  now  regarded 
there  as  a  warning,  a  transformation,  which  apparently 
reverses  all  moral  laws;  that  is,  the  worse  his  conduct 
as  an  individual  member  of  society  the  greater  his 
validity  as  a  warning.  This  is,  however,  the  point  of 
view  of  the  elderly  element.  They  would  unquestion- 
ably regard  poor  Brown's  rehabilitation  as  a  loss  to 
the  general  welfare.  The  younger  members  are  more 
sympathetic.  Some  of  these  have  even  backed  Brown's 
sobriety  to  last  a  twelvemonth  and  were  much  alarmed 
at  the  rumor  that  it  had  already  met  shipwreck.  I 
assured  them  one  and  all  that  he  was  safe  in  Fifty- 
third  Street.  If  the  truth  ever  gets  out  I  shall  prob- 
ably have  to  resign. 

•  ••••••• 

As  I  expected,  my  inexcusable  conduct  in  leaving 
Mrs.  Axson  unprotected  at  the  Eastmans'  has  been 
recalled  to  my  mind.  I  was  imprudent  enough  to  call 
on  her  for  the  purpose  of  expressing  my  contrition. 
She  received  my  excuses  with  chilling  reserve,  but  be- 

121 


PIERRE    VINTON 

neath  this  glacial  exterior  I  detected  a  tiny  flame  of 
curiosity  as  to  why  I  had  done  it.  I  dexterously  fanned 
the  flame. 

"What  were  you  doing?"  she  asked,  melting  at 
last  into  curiosity  when  I  mentioned  the  blood-stained 
shirt-front. 

"I  was  caught  by  a  century-plant,"  I  explained. 

Mrs.  Axson  shrieked  with  laughter. 

THURSDAY 

When  I  came  in  to  dinner  this  afternoon  I  found 
Habliston  talking  to  a  housemaid  in  the  front  hall. 
The  maid's  name  is  Kate,  a  plump,  red-cheeked, 
timid  creature,  whom  I  always  see  going  through  doors 
backward  when  I  approach.  She  fled  precipitately  as 
I  opened  the  door.  I  felt  that  something  had  hap- 
pened. Habliston  was  nervous.  He  dropped  my  stick 
with  a  tremendous  clatter  and  then  laid  it  with  added 
nervousness  on  the  table.  There,  next  to  it,  was  one 
of  the  most  disreputable  hats  I  have  ever  seen  in  my 
life. 

"Whose  is  that?* 

"Mr.  Brown's,  sir." 

I  picked  up  the  hat,  a  soft  black  affair  that  could 
122 


PIERRE    VINTON 

probably  be  carried  folded  in  the  breast  pocket.  It 
was  torn  and  green  and,  furthermore,  the  initials 
stamped  on  the  band  were  not  Brown's.  I  looked  at 
Habliston  and  sighed,  and  Habliston  stooped  to  pick 
up  a  pin.  I  went  into  the  library.  Courty  was  leaning 
against  the  mantelpiece.  He  looked  at  me  without 
lifting  his  head,  which  is  a  deucedly  depressing  way  to 
be  looked  at. 

"Don't  look  at  me  in  that  way,"  I  suggested.  "I 
haven't  done  anything." 

He  straightened  himself  up  and  walked  away  from 
the  fire.  "It  seems  as  if  I  am  finished,  doesn't  it?" 

Then  he  stared  at  me  for  a  moment  in  a  vacant, 
wild  way,  his  lips  working  like  a  rabbit's,  and  came  over 
and  gripped  my  shoulder.  "For  God's  sake,"  he  said, 
"don't  drop  me." 

"It's  all  right,  Courty,"  I  said.  "I  have  just  had  a 
setback  myself." 

This  is  true.  As  Mrs.  Axson  puts  it,  Brown  and  I 
are  in  the  same  boat.  His  mind  can  be  overthrown,  as 
he  says,  by  an  accessible  whiskey  bottle,  and  mine  by 
a  yellow  satin  slipper. 

I  did  not  tell  Brown  this,  however.  I  gave  him 
bromide  and  put  him  to  bed  instead.  He  gave  me  a 

123 


PIERRE    VINTON 

recital  of  his  adventures  of  the  past  thirty-six  hours, 
a  dance  with  his  devil  through  the  lurid  flame-lit 
caverns  of  the  underworld,  or  upper  Hades,  Walpurgis- 
Nacht,  on  Manhattan. 

"What  started  you,  Brown,"  I  asked. 

"A  rum  omelet,"  said  Brown. 

Poor  Brown!  The  gods  have  not  had  their  laugh 
out  yet.  But,  as  a  precaution,  I  shall  speak  to  the  cook 
about  her  omelets. 

•  ••••••• 

I  detest  these  middle-aged  women  who,  having  out- 
lived the  power  of  beauty,  cling  to  its  arrogance.  It 
is  Schopenhauer,  I  think,  who  compares  them  to  the 
sacred  apes  of  Benares,  that  have  been  worshipped 
so  long  they  have  come  to  believe  themselves  sacred. 
Mrs.  Gilbert  is  of  this  sort;  she  is  a  sacred  ape.  She 
was  beautiful  as  lately  as  twenty-five  years  ago,  I 
believe,  and  she  is  still  good-looking  in  a  sort  of  ripe- 
to-bursting  style.  Her  hair  is  defiantly  brown;  her 
skin  exquisitely  colored,  her  figure  only  full  for  the 
most  part,  but  she  spills  over  mightily  about  her  neck 
and  chin. 

She  had  an  aged  beau  with  her  yesterday  when  I 
called  at  the  house,  whose  name  was  Haight  and  who 

124 


PIERRE    VINTON 

lived,  I  gathered,  in  Italy.  He  spent  most  of  his  strength 
urging  her  to  visit  him  at  Como  next  summer.  Poor 
old  fellow,  he  did  not  look  as  if  he  would  possibly  live 
so  long,  for  he  was  half  blind  and  all  gone  in  the  knees. 

She  was  uncommonly  civil  to  me.  Barbara,  I  found, 
had  gone  to  a  dress  rehearsal  of  some  charitable  cha- 
rades, which  take  place  to-day.  Mamma  in  her  absence 
was  not  only  civil  but  in  the  lamplight  much  less 
overripe-looking  than  usual.  I  really  do  not  see  why 
I  did  not  think  her  charming — except  that  there  is  an 
essential  immutable  hardness  about  even  her  gracious- 
ness  which  is  repellent.  She  suggests  a  piece  of  marble 
beautifully  polished  by  friction. 

I  could  not  help  wondering  as  I  watched  her  if 
Barbara  could  ever  become  like  her;  and,  watching,  I 
decided  Barbara  could  not.  Barbara's  generation  at 
its  meridian  will  doubtless  have  many  faults,  but  I  do 
not  believe  that  sacred  apishness  will  be  among  them. 
The  grande  dame,  I  think,  is  a  vanishing  type.  With  it 
must  go  much  apishness,  for  what  is  a  grande  dame  ex- 
cept a  very  sacred  simian,  a  sort  of  right  reverend 
among  the  lesser  clergy. 

It  seemed  that  Mrs.  Gilbert  could  not  accept  the 
feeble  little  gentleman's  invitation  for  Como  until 

125 


PIERRE    VINTON 

Mr.  Gilbert  had  been  consulted.  I  was  about  to  take 
my  leave  when  this  came  up  and  delayed  me,  because 
I  thought  it  would  be  instructive  to  watch  her  manage- 
ment of  Mr.  Gilbert  in  actual  operation.  He  is  reckoned 
the  best-trained  husband  in  New  York,  a  place  sup- 
posed to  be  the  first  school  of  that  sort  in  the  world. 

Mr.  Haight  clapped  his  little  hands  and  with  a 
bow,  whereby  I  thought  he  would  surely  be  pros- 
trated, asked  that  Mr.  Gilbert  be  sent  for.  I  seconded 
him,  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  rang  to  find  out  if  he  had  come  in. 

The  maid  who  answered  the  bell  said  that  Mr. 
Gilbert  had  come  in,  but  that  he  was  lying  down  in 
his  room  and  had  left  word  that  he  was  not  to  be  dis- 
turbed. 

Mrs.  Gilbert  looked  at  us  uncertainly.  "The  poor 
man !  He  has  not  been  at  all  well  lately." 

Mr.  Haight  begged  permission  by  a  gesture  and 
said  to  the  maid:  "Tell  Mr.  Gilbert,  please,  that  Mr. 
Haight,  Mr.  Haight  sends  a  thousand  apologies  for 
disturbing  him,  but  might  he  speak  with  him  on  a  very 
important  matter?" 

With  this  message,  the  maid  left  the  room.  The 
curtain  is  up,  I  thought,  and  I  settled  myself  to  watch 
a  comedy. 

126 


PIERRE    VINTON 

But  this  is  what  I  saw: 

The  maid  returned.  The  door  was  at  my  back,  so  I 
did  not  see  her  enter,  but  when  I  heard  her  voice  I 
jumped  about  in  my  chair  to  look  at  her.  It  was  a 
deferential  voice,  but  it  was  frightened. 

"Mrs.  Gilbert,"  it  said,  "Mr.  Gilbert's  door  is 
locked." 

"Then  knock,"  said  her  mistress. 

"Please'm,  I  did  knock,  but  he  won't  answer." 

Somehow  we  two  men  looked  at  each  other. 

"You  didn't  knock  loudly  enough.    He's  asleep." 

I  saw  the  woman's  face  twitch.  "  Oh,  Mrs.  Gilbert," 
she  cried,  "you  had  better  come.  I  did  knock  and 
knock  and  I  listened,  and  there  isn't  a  sound." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  got  up  as  we  all  did.  "Don't  be 
alarmed,"  she  said  coolly;  "Mr.  Gilbert  is  a  sound 
sleeper,  and  this  woman  is  a  green  fool  from  the  coun- 
try." 

At  that  the  maid  began  to  sob  hysterically  and  her 
mistress  went  out,  driving  the  woman  in  front  of  her. 

When  we  were  left  alone,  Haight  said:  "Don't  you 
think  we  had  better  go?" 

"No,"  I  said.  "I  think  we  had  better  stay." 

So  we  waited.  The  house  seemed  perfectly  quiet 
127 


PIERRE    VINTON 

There  wasn't  a  sound  from  above.  Suddenly,  after  a 
minute  or  two,  there  came  a  crash  of  splintering  wood. 
Somebody  had  driven  in  a  door. 

"I  am  going  up  there,"  cried  the  little  man. 

But  I  caught  his  arm.  "Wait.  They'll  call." 

They  didn't  call.  Instead,  from  the  back  the  butler 
came  running  through  the  room,  struggling  into  his 
coat. 

"What's  happened?"  called  out  Haight. 

"Mr.  Gilbert's  dead  up-stairs.  I'm  going  for  the 
doctor." 

"The  telephone,  you  damned  idiot,"  cried  Haight. 
There  was  an  instrument  on  a  table  within  a  yard  of 
us.  "What's  the  number?"  and  when  I  went  out  of 
the  room  they  were  both  talking  into  the  telephone, 
the  butler  in  gasps,  Haight  in  a  high  falsetto. 

I  went  out  because  I  remembered  Barbara  at  the 
dress  rehearsal. 

There  was  a  crowd  of  servants  in  the  hall  as  I  passed 
through,  gathered  about  the  stair's  foot.  Half-way  up 
I  saw  Mrs.  Gilbert  facing  them,  her  hands  barring  the 
passage  from  stair  rail  to  wall.  She  was,  as  she  had 
left  us,  in  her  hat.  Her  long  white  gloves  dangled  from 
her  wrists.  She  was  on  guard  in  full  uniform.  Some 

128 


PIERRE    VINTON 

great  evil  had  befallen,  but  the  monster  of  public 
scandal  might  still  be  defeated,  so  she  stood  there, 
true  in  the  last  extremity  to  the  traditions  of  her  code. 
For  once  in  my  life  I  almost  admired  Mrs.  Gilbert. 

I  found  a  cab  at  the  corner  and  drove  to  Sherry's, 
where  I  remembered  Mrs.  Gilbert  had  said  the  re- 
hearsal was.  I  was  in  a  hurry,  for  I  didn't  know  what 
minute  some  stampeded  idiot  would  send  a  telephone 
message  to  the  girl.  The  stage  was  set  up  in  a  ball- 
room on  the  third  floor  of  the  restaurant,  where  they 
would  not  allow  me  to  enter  unless  I  explained  my 
business.  So  I  preferred  to  write  "urgent"  on  a  card 
and  send  it  in  instead.  She  came  out  very  soon.  She 
was  wearing  an  enormous  hat  and  was  rouged  and 
powdered  for  the  footlights.  The  papers  to-day  say 
that  she  was  to  have  represented  Le  Brun's  portrait 
of  the  "Girl  with  the  Muff."  Certainly,  then,  as  I  saw 
her,  she  was  the  most  beautiful  woman  I  have  ever 
seen. 

She  came  into  the  hall  holding  my  card  in  her  hand 
and  smiling  a  little  at  the  underscored  "urgent." 

"Come  in,"  she  said,  holding  out  her  other  hand. 

"I  haven't  time,"  I  told  her.  "I've  a  message  for 
you  from  Mrs.  Gilbert." 

129 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"From  mamma?" 

"She  wants  to  see  you." 

"To  see  me?"  she  repeated  again.  "Is  there  anything 
the  matter?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "Mr.  Gilbert  is  ill.  I  don't  know 
any  more.  I  think  you  had  better  let  me  take  you 
home." 

She  wore  heavy  furs.  They  are  part,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  of  the  Le  Brun  portrait.  She  put  up  her  hands 
and  touched  these.  "Perhaps,"  she  said,  "I'd  better 
go  as  I  am." 

"Perhaps,"  I  answered,  and  rang  for  the  lift. 

"Then  he's  very  ill?" 

"I'm  afraid  so." 

"Just  what  do  you  know?  You  must  tell  me,"  she 
asked  as  we  waited. 

I  only  knew  that  he  had  been  found  unconscious 
and  was  so  still  when  I  left,  and  this  I  told  her.  I  could 
make  nothing  of  her  expression  under  the  hat  brim 
and  the  paint  and  powder,  but  her  voice  trembled  when 
she  said  I  was  very  kind  to  come  for  her. 

As  I  followed  her  through  the  crowded  hall  I  could 
not  help  wondering  how  many  of  those  who  turned  to 
stare  at  her  startling  beauty  in  all  that  make-up 

130 


PIERRE    VINTON 

envied  her.  In  the  cab  I  told  her  exactly  what  I  had 
seen,  for  I  did  not  know  how,  in  the  confusion  of  that 
distraught  household,  the  truth  would  be  finally  told 
her.  And  she  listened  without  answering.  Only  at  the 
end  she  asked  me  how  I  happened  to  be  there. 

"I  came  to  see  you." 

"About  Laurie?"  she  asked  and  said  no  more. 

When  we  got  to  the  house  a  little  group  of  three  or 
four  people  were  gathered  about  the  steps  and  a  police- 
man was  standing  on  them.  At  this  she  shrank  back 
for  an  instant  with  a  curious  little  cry.  But  she  got 
herself  together  again  and  went  up  the  steps  without 
faltering.  The  door  opened  before  I  rang,  and  it  was 
Mrs.  Gilbert  who  opened  it.  Over  her  shoulder  I  caught 
a  glimpse  of  an  empty  hall. 

Then  I  stepped  back  and  the  door  closed  on  mother 
and  daughter,  and  on  what  tragedy  I  had  no  idea. 

It  was  not  until  I  read  to-day's  papers  that  I  learned 
how  the  butler  had  broken  down  the  light  door  of  the 
bathroom  between  the  two  bedrooms  of  the  husband 
and  wife,  and  found  his  master  lying  dead  on  the  floor. 
Yet  it  had  all  happened  six  feet  above  my  head.  And 
what  else  he  found  I  shall  probably  never  know.  And 
so  once  again  I  am  forced  to  admire  Mrs.  Gilbert,  for 

131 


PIERRE    VINTON 

that  there  is  something  more  to  know  seems,  on  the 
face  of  it,  probable.  Is  it  usual  for  men  to  lie  down  for 
an  hour's  nap  between  locked  doors  ?  Is  it  not  strange 
that  the  heart  trouble  that  killed  him  was  unsuspected 
by  his  most  intimate  friends?  These  are  some  of  the 
questions  that  are  being  asked  to-day.  When  they 
asked  me  I  told  the  questioners  to  be  patient.  Mrs. 
Gilbert  will  answer  them  all  satisfactorily  in  twenty- 
four  hours. 

The  truth  revealed  itself  to  me  to-day  that  Mar- 
cella  is  poor.  Heretofore,  I  suppose,  I  have  been  unable 
to  imagine  Marcella  poor  w.hile  I  was  not.  In  my  in- 
vestigations of  the  relations  which  the  divorced  has 
severed  and  left  intact  the  financial  relation  had  not 
attracted  my  attention.  I  had  supposed  it  intact.  Of 
course  it  is,  in  reality,  completely  severed,  the  last 
ligament  having  been  snipped  in  two  by  Marcella's 
refusal  of  alimony.  The  revelation  is  due  to  my  ac- 
cidental meeting  with  Uncle  Fred  at  lunch  this  noon. 

I  saw  his  round  bald  head  above  a  table  by  the 
window  as  soon  as  I  entered  the  restaurant,  and  went 
over  to  sit  with  him.  He  is  an  ordinary  enough  little 
man,  I  suppose,  to  the  vision  of  the  world  at  large,  with 

132 


PIERRE    VINTON 

a  round,  bald  head,  and  round,  fat  cheeks,  and  a  round, 
little  stomach,  and  a  white  mustache  that  sprouts 
parabolically,  completely  hiding  his  lips.  But  I  can 
never  approach  him  without  inward  quailing.  He 
frightened  me  once  so  completely  that  I  have  never 
recovered.  He  broke  my  spirit  once  and,  like  a  con- 
quered horse,  I  have  acknowledged  his  supremacy  ever 
since.  It  seemed  to  me  on  that  occasion  that  the  clouds 
of  Olympus  veiled  his  brow  and  the  thunders  of  Sinai 
echoed  in  his  voice.  I  cowered  before  him  with  scarcely 
enough  courage  to  ask  him  for  Marcella,  that  being  the 
object  of  the  interview. 

He  is  a  country  gentleman  nowadays,  and  was  very 
inquisitive  about  the  vegetables,  many  of  which  he 
insisted  upon  inspecting  before  they  were  cooked.  He 
told  me  that  there  was  only  one  variety  of  asparagus 
that  was  fit  to  eat  and  that  variety  could  not  be 
bought  in  New  York.  This  appeared  to  give  him  great 
satisfaction.  I  fancy  I  would  have  smiled  to  see  any- 
body else  with  Mr.  Barton's  peculiar,  quiet  dignity  in- 
specting a  raw  potato.  Eating  the  vegetable  afterward 
made  me  uncomfortable,  as  though  I  were  guilty  some- 
how of  a  discourtesy.  I  don't  understand  why  he  has 
not  been  made  president  of  something. 

133 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  asked  for  Marcella. 

He  said  she  was  well,  and  then  he  added  decisively: 
"She  is  a  very  scatter-brained  woman,  Vinton." 

"Is  she?" 

At  that  moment  his  own  intellect  was  concentrated 
on  a  potato.  "And  she  has  a  very  scatter-brained  lot 
of  friends." 

I  did  not  answer.  A  short  time  past,  no  doubt,  he 
would  have  added  that  she  had  a  very  scatter-brained 
husband.  He  then  explained  that  Marcella  was  wast- 
ing her  time  with  books,  music,  horses,  and  friends. 

"Her  plan  now,"  he  continued,  "is  to  teach  music." 

"To  do  what?"  I  cried. 

My  voice  must  have  been  too  loud,  because  he  looked 
at  me  disapprovingly  and  replied  in  a  whisper : "  Music." 

I  did  not  accept  the  rebuke.  In  fact,  I  did  not  notice 
it. 

"Why?"  I  asked  stupidly. 

He  dismissed  the  subject  as  if  it  bored  him.  "It  is 
just  a  woman's  fancy,"  he  explained. 

It  is,  of  course,  nothing  of  the  sort.  The  reason  Mar- 
cella wishes  to  give  music  lessons  is  that  Marcella 
wishes  to  make  money.  It  occurs  to  me  now  that  some 
of  the  sympathy  I  have  expended  on  myself  during 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  last  six  months  might  have  been  shared  with  Mar- 
cella.  Uncle  Fred's  information  has  enabled  me  to 
see  Marcella  at  Babylon.  His  hand  has  unwittingly 
torn  a  little  rent  in  the  veil  that  has  hitherto  hidden 
Uncle  Fred's  household,  and  through  that  rent  I  can 
see,  it  seems  to  me,  into  every  nook  and  cranny  of  it. 
There  is  not  a  great  deal  to  see;  Mrs.  Barton  and 
her  daughter  Matilde  and  Matilde's  Aunt  Sophie  and 
Marcella  in  the  one  spare  bedroom.  But  my  previous 
acquaintance  with  the  household  when  it  was  estab- 
lished in  Lexington  Avenue  makes  that  little  tremen- 
dously significant. 

I  wish  I  could  bribe  somebody  to  marry  Matilde. 
That  would  relieve  the  situation  more  effectively  than 
any  other  happening  I  can  think  of.  It  must  be  gall  and 
wormwood  to  the  poor  girl  to  see  Marcella  throw  away 
a  husband.  It  is  to  her,  doubtless,  a  sort  of  insolence 
which  if  she  does  not  resent  mamma  resents  for  her,  and 
her  Aunt  Sophie  too.  Poor  Matilde!  Marcella  used  in- 
variably to  ask  her  to  dinner  once  a  week,  and  she  as 
invariably  accepted.  Experience  had  no  terrors  for  her 
verdant  optimism.  She  used  up  a  man  a  week,  and  in 
the  third  year  Marcella  used  to  give  me  the  morning  be- 
fore a  sort  of  roving  commission,  like  a  privateersman, 

135 


PIERRE    VINTON 

to  "bring  home  somebody."  In  some  ways  I  was  a  suc- 
cessful husband.  I  never,  if  I  remember  rightly,  re- 
turned empty-handed.  Once,  to  be  sure,  it  was  Malory, 
and  once  it  was  a  professional  baseball  player  with 
whom  I  was  at  college.  But  my  prize  was  always  grown 
and  sober.  Marcella  insisted  upon  these  qualifications.  I 
would  welcome  them  almost  on  the  front  steps  and 
when  I  ushered  them  into  the  drawing-room  I  was  as 
elated  as  a  high  priest  of  Moloch  on  a  feast-day.  Dining 
Matilde  was  probably  the  most  consistently  successful 
effort  of  my  life. 

Altogether,  it  is  not  a  pleasant  sight  I  look  upon 
through  the  rent.  Matilde,  who  has  suffered  all  this, 
has  the  bitter  wormwood  beneath  the  veneering  of 
sweetness  of  the  predestined  spinsters;  and  her  mother, 
who  has  always  resented  Marcella  as  an  elderly  duck 
resents  having  a  swan  forced  into  her  brood  for  foster- 
child;  and  Aunt  Sophie,  who  is  simply  Matilde's 
predecessor  in  the  stony  path  of  celibacy.  I  do  not 
know  how  women  torture  each  other  in  these  circum- 
stances. I  have  known  the  operation  to  be  taking  place 
beneath  my  eyes,  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  discern 
a  single  feature  of  it.  But  I  know  Marcella  is  com- 
pletely at  their  mercy.  Her  only  ally  is  six  bonds.  That 

136 


PIERRE    VINTON 

is  Marcella's  fortune;  six  four-and-one-half-per-cent 
bonds. 

And  Uncle  Fred  defines  her  frantic  efforts  to  escape 
as  "scatter-brained."  He  would  doubtless  describe  the 
movements  of  a  cornered  rat  as  "nervous."  I  am  be- 
ginning to  recover  my  equanimity  in  regard  to  my  ex- 
uncle-in-law,  who  has  such  good  manners  and  a  pro- 
found knowledge  of  asparagus. 

As  I  sit  here  writing  this,  in  a  house  which  her 
taste  and  labor  changed  from  an  unsightly  museum  of 
mid- Victorian  relics  to  what  it  is,  where  some  memento 
of  her  is  beneath  my  eyes  always,  the  penholder  in  my 
fingers  as  well  as  the  paper  on  the  walls,  and  as  I  re- 
member her  delight  in  it  all  and  then  picture  that 
household  down  at  Babylon  and  Marcella  in  the  one 
spare  bedroom,  I  could  beat  my  head  against  these 
walls  to  be  rid  of  the  knowledge  that  all  this  luxury 
was  weighed  in  the  balance  against  me  and  it  was 
found  wanting. 

Examining  this  violent  impulse  calmly,  I  find  it  to 
be  for  the  most  part  vanity.  The  philosophic  calm 
which  impersonal  analysis  is  supposed  to  induce  does 
not,  however,  pervade  my  being.  On  the  contrary,  I  feel 
more  like  beating  my  head  against  the  wall  than  ever. 

137 


PIERRE    VINTON 

My  demon  is,  I  think,  exultingly  sharpening  his 
claws  to-night.  He  knows  that  I  have  to  spend  an 
evening  with  myself.  How  the  prospect  would  terrify 
Phillipe !  I  think  I  shall  try  to  trick  my  demon  and 
take  up  with  Brown's  instead.  To  accomplish  this  pur- 
pose, I  shall  have  to  wake  Habliston,  who  has  strict 
orders  to  lock  up  all  forms  of  alcohol,  and  frighten  him 
painfully  into  the  bargain.  This  is  one  of  my  privileges. 
I  may  maltreat  servants  and  drink  champagne  at  any 
hour  of  the  day  or  night,  for  I  have  sixty  times  six 
bonds. 

Habliston  has  come  and  gone,  a  shivering,  timid 
creature  in  a  dressing-gown  whom  I  scarcely  recog- 
nized. All  his  dignity  laid  off  with  his  coat  tails.  What 
an  illustration  for  Ecclesiastes !  What  a  frontispiece 
for  "Sartor  Resartus"  !  A  butler  en  deshabille !  He  has 
placed  the  bottle,  with  rare  discrimination,  on  a  volume 
of  Montaigne  on  the  desk  here,  and  I  can  think  that 
the  wine  has  sucked  the  spirit  out  of  the  book.  Just  so, 
the  bitter-sweet  of  the  nobleman's  philosophy  stings 
and  exhilarates. 

Phillipe  is  right.  I  am  a  dull  dog.  I  realize  now  what 
a  very  dull  dog  I  generally  am.  I  perceive  this  now  with 
the  aid  of  two  glasses  of  champagne.  The  perception 

138 


PIERRE    VINTON 

does  not  trouble  me  in  the  least.  I  am,  at  any  rate,  a 
very  brilliant,  dashing  dog  for  the  time  being. 

There  lies  the  power  of  the  stuff.  They  are  fools  who 
say  it  changes  the  outer  world  to  the  eyes.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  outer  world  shows  clearer  to  me  now,  only 
I  have  the  courage  to  look  it  fairly  in  the  face  and  see 
it  as  it  is.  I  look  even  into  the  glass  which  Marcella 
always  kept  upon  the  desk,  and  I  see  there  a  pleasant- 
faced  fellow  enough  whom  his  tailor  finds  easy  to  fit. 
This,  say  the  mystics,  is  a  "Centre  of  Immensities," 
"A  Confluence  of  Eternities."  I  smile.  Surely  it  is  the 
mystics  and  not  I  who  have  been  taking  wine !  "What," 
bellows  Jean  Paul,  "is  this  me,  the  thing  that  can  say 
I?"  I  answer  imperturbably:  "It  is  a  stock-broker." 

At  other  times  the  inadequacy  of  the  answer  fills 
me  with  dismay.  Now  the  foolishness  of  the  question 
fills  me  with  pity.  I  am  as  the  gods,  knowing  good  and 
evil,  and  not  necessarily  preferring  the  former.  This 
passion  that  torments  me  is  no  mystery  of  the  spirit. 
It  is  not  beyond  the  skill  of  the  surgeon  or  the  experi- 
ence of  a  man  of  pleasure.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  pecu- 
liarly of  the  flesh.  Why,  then,  should  I  spend  my  days 
in  such  a  vain  longing  when  the  world  is  what  it  is 
and  I  have  sixty  times  six  bonds  ?  The  money  may  not 

139 


PIERRE    VINTON 

be  able  to  purchase  happiness,  but  no  one  denies,  so 
far  as  I  know,  that  it  can  unfailingly  purchase  satiety. 
Marcella  made  a  mistake.  She  should  have  kept  me 
and  the  bonds.  Now  she  has  lost  both  and  must 
teach  music  for  bread  and  peace.  I  have  lost  only  Mar- 
cella, and,  having  the  bonds,  can  buy  another  woman. 

•  ••••••• 

God  pity  me  for  a  futile  liar!  I  would  be  happier  if 
I  could  buy  the  real  woman  a  hairpin;  I  do  not  even 
dare  offer  her  what  is  really  hers.  "In  vino  veritas." 
That's  false.  This  calendar  here  on  the  desk,  whose 
days  are  marked  by  her  hand,  the  blotting-pad  that 
no  one  else  has  used,  the  crumpled  gloves  in  the  table 
yonder,  the  faint  perfume  in  the  empty  closet  up- 
stairs— where  is  the  truth  that  can  talk  these  argu- 
ments down? 

Brown's  devil  lives  in  the  nethermost  pit.  I  have 
thrown  the  bottle  in  the  fire,  and  I  saw  him  fly  up  the 
chimney  in  blue  flames. 


140 


X 

MY  Aunt  Louise  sent  for  me  to-day  in  a  state  of  ter- 
rific excitement.  She  has  just  returned  from  a  tour 
of  convalescence  with  Phillipe  through  the  South.  It 
seems  that  immediately  on  her  return  Miss  Kate 
Hetherington  (whom  I  do  not  know,  but  may  the  earth 
lie  heavy  on  her  bones!)  informed  her  of  Marcella's 
intent  to  teach  music.  If  my  aunt  had  learned  of  her 
intention  of  teaching  the  seven  deadly  sins  she  could 
not  be  more  shocked. 

"It  is  impossible,"  she  said  to  me  this  afternoon  at 
the  Buckingham. 

That  is  one  of  the  few  things  it  is  not.  It  is  neither 
wicked  nor  impossible.  I  admit  it  is  pretty  near  every- 
thing else. 

"You  must  stop  it,"  said  my  aunt. 

"How?"  I  asked. 

"You  must  tell  her  that  it  is  a  reflection  on  you,  and 
that  inasmuch  as  you  offered  to — "  and  she  began  to 
enumerate  the  offers  the  Supreme  Court  and  myself 
held  out  to  Marcella  until  I  grew  weary. 

141 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  shall  do  nothing  of  the  sort,"  I  replied.  I  would 
rather  be  crushed  by  an  avalanche  of  "reflections" 
than  face  Marcella  with  such  a  plea. 

"Then  I  shall." 

"If  you  do  I  shall  go  about  drumming  pupils  for 
her." 

"Pierre,  are  you  mad?"  she  inquired.  "Are  you 
going  to  let  it  be  said  that  your  wife  has  to  take 
scholars  for  bread  while  you  enjoy  a  fortune  ? " 

"You  forget  that  she  is  no  longer  my  wife."  I  did 
not  add  that  according  to  my  aunt  she  never  had 
been. 

"It  is  not  the  time  to  quibble,"  she  replied.  "The 
obligations  of  a  gentleman  are  not  abrogated  by  the 
decisions  of  a  law  court." 

"Then,"  I  asked,  "there  are  still  some  duties  be- 
tween Marcella  and  me  ?  I  am  still  responsible  to  some 
degree  for  her  welfare  ?  " 

My  aunt  hesitated.  I  think  she  suspected  another 
quibble.  "I  don't  see  how  you  can  ask  such  a  question," 
was  all  she  could  say. 

"It  seems  to  me  the  most  natural  question  in  the 
world,"  I  replied,  "and  yet  the  hardest  to  get  an- 
swered." 

142 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Whom  have  you  asked  such  questions?"  she  in- 
quired, having  a  female  weakness  for  side  issues. 

"  Everybody,  and  I  always  get  a  different  answer." 

"I  should  think,"  she  replied,  "that  in  matters  of 
this  sort  you  could  use  your  natural  feelings  for  guide." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  had  as  soon  use  an  infernal 
machine  for  a  watch.  "My  natural  feelings,"  I  returned, 
"are  quite  out  of  the  question." 

Aunt  Louise's  lips  tightened.  She  has  very  thin  lips, 
and  now,  in  her  old  age,  when  she  closes  them  in  this 
way  her  chin  protrudes  slightly.  "It  shall  not  go  on," 
she  said.  "  She  has  no  right,  bearing  your  name,  to  use 
it  in  such  a  way." 

If  Marcella  had  any  other  name  Aunt  Louise  would 
not  object  to  her  taking  in  washing.  That  is  why  the 
discussion  irritated  me  so.  "If  the  name  can  get  her  a 
single  pupil,"  I  answered,  "I  hope  she  will  put  up  an 
electric  sign  in  Long  Acre  Square." 

Aunt  Louise  raised  her  hands  despairingly.  "Is 
there  nothing  that  is  sacred  to  you,  Pierre  ? " 

I  did  not  relieve  her  despair.  She  is  not  quite  the 
person  to  whom  I  would  open  my  heart. 

"If  you  will  not  do  anything,  I  shall,"  she  con- 
tinued. 

143 


PIERRE  VINTON; 

,"What  will  you  do?" 

"I  shall  send  for  her  and  tell  her  what  I've  told  you." 

I  have  reviewed  what  she  has  told  me,  and  to  save 
my  life  I  cannot  understand  how  any  portion  of  it 
will  have  any  effect  upon  Marcella.  It  will,  of  course, 
be  intensely  disagreeable,  but  I  realize  that  I  cannot 
prevent  Aunt  Louise's  being  disagreeable. 

"It  will  be  quite  useless,"  I  pointed  out.  "You  must 
tell  her  that  you  are  acting  on  your  authority  only 
and  that  I  have  no  objection  to  her  doing  whatever 
she  chooses." 

"She  knows  that,"  she  said  sarcastically. 

We  have  not  parted  so  stiffly  for  years — not  since 
the  days  when  she  used  to  turn  me  out  of  her  room  for 
stealing  hairpins,  and  that  was  twenty-five  years  ago. 
I  had  a  sudden  impulse  while  I  was  putting  on  my  coat 
in  the  hall  to  go  back  and  make  it  up  with  her  and 
beg  her  to  give  up  the  proposed  interview.  But  to 
what  purpose,  I  reflected.  I  could  no  more  change  my 
aunt's  conviction  of  the  heinousness  of  Marcella's 
conduct  in  this  matter  than  I  could  alter  her  manner 
of  speech.  She  is  of  one  age,  Marcella  of  the  next. 
Between  them  there  is  the  impassable  gulf.  Let  them 
shriek  at  one  another  from  the  edges  for  an  hour  or 

144 


PIERRE    VINTON 

so.  It  can  do  neither  harm.  In  fact,  it  may  possibly  do 
one  good. 

Walking  up-town  in  this  philosophic  mood  and  hap- 
pening to  pass  the  door  of  Mrs.  Axson's  hotel  I  turned 
in  there. 

Mrs.  Axson  prides  herself  and  exasperates  her  rela- 
tives by  her  progressivism.  It  is  as  well  recognized  a 
feature  of  her  personality  as  her  Christian  name. 
Having  listened  to  my  aunt's  mediaeval  views  in  regard 
to  Marcella's  scheme,  I  felt  that  it  would  be  beneficial 
to  hear  Mrs.  Axson's  also.  So  I  went  in  and  asked  to 
see  her.  She  sent  down  word  that  she  would  be  delighted 
to  see  me. 

I  found  Mrs.  Axson  on  her  sofa  with  a  bottle  of 
scent  and  a  volume  of  Brieux's  plays. 

"An  excellent  precaution,"  I  remarked,  as  I  drew  up 
my  chair.  "  But  why  read  Brieux  at  all  ? " 

"I  have  a  headache,"  she  explained,  but  she  dropped 
the  volume  on  the  other  side  of  the  sofa. 

"I  have  some  news,"  I  began. 

Mrs.  Axson  spilled  an  extravagant  quantity  of  scent 
on  a  pocket-handkerchief  and  held  the  pocket-hand- 
kerchief for  me  to  smell.  "About  Marcella?"  she  in- 
quired. 

145 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"How  did  you  guess?" 

She  put  the  handkerchief  up  to  her  own  nose  and 
smiled.  "Never  mind,"  she  answered;  "tell  me  what 
it  is." 

I  told  her.  I  also  told  her  of  my  interview  with 
Aunt  Louise,  and  the  firmly  progressive  stand  I  had 
maintained  therein. 

She  did  not  interrupt  me,  which  was  unusual,  and 
even  when  I  had  quite  finished  she  remained  silent. 

"I  expected,"  I  observed  presently,  "you  would 
agree  with  me." 

"What  have  you  done?"  she  asked. 

"Why,  that  is  just  the  point.  I  haven't  done  any- 
thing. It  is  none  of  my  business." 

"Oh,  I  see." 

I  made  no  reply  to  the  exclamation,  although  it  was 
a  distinctly  disagreeable  one.  Lilly  did  not  appear  to 
expect  me  to  do  so.  She  looked  around  the  room  which, 
as  I  have  often  told  her,  is  a  very  pretty  room. 

"It  must  be  awful  to  be  poor,"  she  remarked  unex- 
pectedly. 

"To  Marcella,  at  present,"  I  answered,  "a  room 
like  this  would  be  a  cage." 

"I  wasn't  talking  about  Marcella." 
146 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Mrs.  Malory  does  not  mind  it,"  said  I. 

"I  wasn't  talking  about  Mrs.  Malory,  either,"  said 
Lilly. 

"Well,  then,"  I  conceded,  "you,  of  course,  would 
hate  it  like  the  devil,  but  think  how  sweet  would  be 
a  life  of  independence." 

Lilly,  lying  on  her  pillows,  smelled  the  cologne 
bottle  and  reflected.  "Yes,"  she  admitted  slowly, 
"that  would  be  rather  jolly." 

"Nobody's  objections  or  prejudices  or  authority," 
I  continued,  "to  amount  to  a " 

"To  a  damn.  Yes,  that  would  be  a  great  advantage." 

"To  feel  that  between  you  and  the  world  there 
existed  no  obligation  except  what  your  strength  con- 
ceded to  its  weakness;  to  be  able  to  look  all  human 
society  square  in  the  face  and  demand  with  justice  the 
fair  return  of  your  services  to  it  and  no  more;  to  be 
able  to  say  to  friend  or  critic:  *Take  me  for  all  in  all, 
I  am  a  man.' ' 

"But  I  am  not." 

"Not  what?" 

"Not  a  man,"  said  Mrs.  Axson. 

"I  was  speaking  generally,"  I  explained. 

"Yes,  but  I  am  not  even  generally  a  man." 
147 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"By  generally — "  I  began. 

"You  might  explain  all  night,"  said  Lilly,  "but  I 
remain  a  woman  and  for  the  present  an  ill  woman 
too,  and  I  say  it  must  be  awful  to  be  poor  when  you 
are  a  woman.  It  may  not  matter  to  a  man.  Nobody 
cares  how  men  live  unless  their  wives  live  with  them. 
They  have  holes,  like  rabbits,  that  they  have  come  out 
of  when  we  see  them.  We  don't  know  where  the  holes 
are  or  what  they  do  when  they  are  in  them.  But  a 
woman  needs  money  everywhere,  at  home  or  on  the 
street." 

I  did  not  feel  that  my  experience  allowed  me  to 
contest  the  statement  that  a  woman  needed  money, 
so  I  said  nothing. 

"I  suppose,  of  course,  you  don't  agree  with  me," 
said  Mrs.  Axson. 

"I  agree  with  you  perfectly." 

She  looked  aggrieved. 

"Only,"  I  added,  "I  don't  think  your  views  are  very 
progressive.  I  thought  the  modern  woman  cared  only 
for  independence." 

Mrs.  Axson  had  often  told  me  so  herself.  In  fact, 
some  of  my  speech  on  the  sweets  of  independence  was 
borrowed  from  her  and  I  was  surprised  she  did  not 

148 


PIERRE    VINTON 

recognize  it.  "Who,"  I  continued,  venturing  on 
plagiarism  verbatim,  "who  would  not  prefer  the  dol- 
lar earned  by  labor  unashamed  to  the  thousands 
lavished  upon  caprice?" 

"That's  rot,"  said  Lilly. 

"You  said  it  yourself,"  I  cried. 

"I  did  not." 

I  was  silent,  but  with  obvious  politeness. 

"I  suppose,"  she  continued,  "you  think  you  can 
make  me  admit  anything,  just  because  I  have  had  a 
bad  headache." 

"I  forgot  the  headache,"  I  confessed. 

"I  wish  I  could,"  she  said  wearily,  and  passed  the 
handkerchief  across  her  forehead. 

"Perhaps,"  I  suggested,  "talking  increases  it." 

"No,  but  argument  does,"  said  Mrs.  Axson. 

I  looked  at  her.  She  was  laughing. 

"Lilly,"  I  said,  "you  are  a  humbug." 

"I  swear  upon  my  heart,"  she  said,  "that  I  have  a 
headache." 

"That  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  I  replied.  "I 
came  to  you  for  sympathy  and  support  in  a  course  of 
conduct  exactly  in  accord  with  your  avowed  belief* 
and  you  openly  turn  against  me." 

149 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  told  you,"  she  replied,  "that  I  have  a  headache." 

I  rose.  "I  won't  trouble  you  again,"  I  remarked, 
"on  matters  of  importance." 

"Not  even  when  I  am  well?"  she  asked. 

"Not  even  when  you  are  well,"  I  repeated.  "I  do 
not  see  any  great  difference  in  such  matters  between  a 
woman  with  a  headache  and  a  woman  without  one." 

"Then  I  thank  God  I  did  not  marry  you,"  said 
Lilly. 

I  did  not  answer.  "I  hope,"  I  said,  feeling  for  my 
hat,  "that  you  will  be  better  before  the  next  suffrage 
conference." 

"Where  are  you  going?"  she  asked. 

"I  am  going  to  see  Mrs.  Malory,"  I  replied  with  my 
hand  on  the  door. 

"Be  sure,"  said  Mrs.  Axson,  "to  kiss  the  children 
for  me." 

This  was  an  undeserved  sneer  at  Mrs.  Malory,  be- 
cause I  did  go  to  see  her  and  I  did  not  see  the  chil- 
dren. To  be  sure,  the  floor  of  the  library  where  she  gave 
me  tea  was  decorated  with  the  contents  of  a  rag  doll 
and  a  Noah's  ark. 

Mrs.  Malory's  housewifely  eye  was  on  them  at  once. 
"The  children  have  been  playing  here,"  she  apologized. 

150 


PIERRE    VINTON 

It  was  an  unnecessary  apology,  however,  because  I 
did  not  suspect  either  her  or  Malory  of  playing  with  a 
Noah's  ark  or  a  rag  doll.  "Such  things  are  the  most 
cheerful  sights  in  the  world,"  I  declared,  "the  true 
ornaments  of  any  home." 

Only  the  original  designer  of  the  ark  and  Mrs. 
Malory  would  have  accepted  that  remark.  Mrs. 
Malory  beamed  on  it,  however,  as  she  picked  up  the 
sugar  bowl,  then  suddenly  her  face  clouded.  I  was 
puzzled,  but  only  for  a  moment.  "The  children,"  I 
suggested,  "have  been  playing  in  there  too?"  referring 
to  the  sugar  bowl. 

"I  am  afraid,"  she  confessed,  "that  they  have. 
Would  you  excuse  me  for  a  moment?" 

"Don't  trouble  yourself  about  sugar,"  I  urged.  "I 
really  prefer  tea  without  it." 

Mrs.  Malory  looked  a  little  confused.  "I  am  a 
little  anxious,"  she  explained,  "sugar  in  such  quan- 
tities is  so  bad  for  them." 

I  withdrew  my  protest  and  she  fled.  I  spent  the  next 
fifteen  minutes  examining  the  contents  of  the  Noah's 
ark.  Perhaps  because  it  was  there  that  I  had  last  seen 
Mrs.  Malory,  the  affair  reminded  me  of  the  Eastmans' 
ball. 

151 


PIERRE    VINTON 

When  she  returned  I  plunged  at  once  into  the  middle 
of  things.  "Mrs.  Malory,"  I  began,  "I  want  to  ask  you 
a  question." 

"As  many,  Mr.  Vinton,"  she  replied,  "as  you  like. 
We  can  have  a  long  private  chat  until  Malory  comes." 

"When  does  he  come?" 

"Oh,  never  before  six,"  said  Mrs.  Malory. 

I  glanced  at  the  clock.  It  was  ten  minutes  of  that 
hour. 

"Perhaps,"  I  began. 

"Oh,  there  he  is  now,"  cried  Mrs.  Malory,  and  I 
heard  the  sound  of  a  key  in  the  front  door. 

"It  was  just  about  time,  you  see,"  she  added — 
irrelevantly  I  thought. 

Malory  came  in  and  shook  hands  with  me,  and  kissed 
his  wife.  "Has  anything  happened,"  he  inquired. 

She  explained  about  the  sugar,  while  I  returned  to 
the  contemplation  of  the  ark. 

"Have  you  sent  for  McCullogh?"  I  heard  from 
Malory. 

"No,  dear.  I  did  not  think  it  necessary,  and  we  have 
called  him  up  so  often  unnecessarily." 

"He  is  paid  for  it,  isn't  he?"  demanded  her  husbandi 
"and  you  don't  know  how  much  they  ate." 

152 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  rose.  "Don't  go,"  said  Malory. 

"I  must,"  I  replied. 

"Oh,  well,  if  you  must,"  said  Malory,  leading  the 
way  to  the  street. 

I  was  in  the  door  when  I  heard  Mrs.  Malory  cry: 
"I  knew  there  was  something  I  wanted  to  ask 
you." 

I  stopped  and  looked  back.  Malory  was  on  the  stair- 
way, half-way  to  the  second  floor. 

"Is  it  really  true  about  Marcella?"  Mrs.  Malory 
asked. 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "it  is  really  true,  I  am  afraid." 

"She  is  going  to  make  her  own  living?"  cried  Mrs. 
Malory. 

"She  is  going  to  try." 

"And  she  will  live  in  town,  and  have  a  little  flat 
all  to  herself?" 

"I  suppose  so,"  I  agreed,  and  looked  at  Mrs.  Malory 
closely.  Malory  had  entirely  disappeared.  From  the 
darkened  up-stairs  floated  down  a  plaintive  wail.  She 
started. 

"Yes,"  I  added,  "all  to  herself.  What  do  you  think 
of  that?" 

Mrs.  Malory  paused.  In  the  light  of  the  hall  lamp 
IM 


PIERRE    VINTON 

her  face  shone.  "I  think,"  she  murmured,  "I  think  it 
would  be  the  loveliest  thing  in  the  world." 

Then  she  fled — to  investigate  that  plaintive  wail. 

Inasmuch  as  Mrs.  Malory  had  no  headache,  I  con- 
sider her  an  even  more  flagrant  renegade  than  Mrs. 
Axson. 


154 


XI 

"POOR  Gilbert!  He  left  very  little."  That  is  not 
gossip;  it  is  an  epitaph. 

The  truth  is  he  died  a  bankrupt,  and  the  Hudson 
Trust  Company  will  pay  his  debts.  But  truth  is  such 
an  awkward  thing  to  handle;  it  is  easier  to  stick  to 
epitaphs.  It  is  easier  to  believe  that  he  left  the  house 
in  Madison  Avenue  and  a  small  income  than  to  believe 
them  both  gifts  of  the  Hudson  Trust  Company,  and 
that  is  the  way  everybody  is  handling  the  situation  at 
present. 

I  have  seen  Barbara  once  since  the  afternoon  of  the 
rehearsal,  a  far-off,  black-robed  figure  in  a  pageant. 
She  was,  I  believe,  much  fonder  of  her  father  than  of 
the  other  parent,  and,  besides,  he  was  the  Atlas  of  her 
world.  Mrs.  Gilbert  may  have  ruled  the  house,  but  he 
was  the  pillar  that  held  up  her  universe.  Now  the  pillar 
has  fallen,  and  I  am  afraid  her  everything  has  come 
crushing  down  to  ruin,  along  with  it,  Laurie  Hastings 
as  much  as  anything  else. 

155 


PIERRE    VINTON 

When  such  a  thing  as  this  happens  I  cannot  be  sur- 
prised that  women  are  getting  tired  of  such  insecurity 
and  want  some  support  more  stable  than  these  very 
mortal  Atlases  to  rest  their  universes  upon.  The  ar- 
rangement is  pretty  enough,  even  splendid  at  times, 
while  they  are  running  about  in  motors,  jewelled  and 
furred,  silken  clad  and  exquisitely  scented.  It  has 
always  seemed  to  me  particularly  pretty  and  charming 
when  I  have  seen  them  here  in  New  York  at  luncheon 
in  the  up-town  cafes,  and  compared  those  gay,  pretty 
scenes  with  some  feeding  establishments  below  Four- 
teenth Street,  where  their  Atlases  were  doubtless  at 
the  same  hours  filling  their  stomachs.  But,  pshaw!  it 
is  only  a  gambler's  luxury.  They  never  know  where  the 
end  is.  A  quarrel,  an  illness,  a  prettier  face — one  of  a 
hundred  such  little  happenings  may  take  it  away  in  a 
week.  How  can  they  be  ever  truly  happy  on  such  frail 
foundations  ? 

Yes,  I  have  the  deepest  sympathy  with  the  protests 
of  these  sisters  and  wives  of  the  rich,  and  I  can  per- 
fectly understand  how  they  feel  that  society  is  unjustly 
a  man-devised  organization.  The  complaints  of  the 
humbler  sisters  seem  to  me  quite  artificial  by  compar- 
ison. 

156 


PIERRE    VINTON 

This,  I  suppose,  "lets  me  out"  as  a  philanthropist. 
Well,  no  matter,  I  was  getting  tired  of  the  role  anyway. 

"Old,  unhappy,  far-off  things,  and  battles  long 
ago." 

Marcella  has  a  bad  temper.  I  had  almost  forgot 
that  of  late;  it  was  brought  to  my  mind  this  afternoon, 
down  at  Babylon,  by  Marcella  herself.  She  talked  to 
me  by  telephone  in  the  office  yesterday. 

"This,"  announced  a  muffled,  creaking  sound,  "is 
Marcella." 

I  kicked  the  door  of  my  private  office  closed  and 
answered:  "Oh!  How  are  you?" 

"I  want  to  talk  to  you,"  she  went  on.  "Can  I  see 
you  to-day?" 

"Of  course." 

"Where?" 

I  was  a  little  confused.  In  the  first  place,  I  haven't 
the  gift  of  the  telephone,  and  I  had  not,  moreover,  re- 
covered from  the  surprise  of  talking  to  her  at  all.  I 
answered  as  a  child  repeats  a  well-learned  "Fouquard's 
at  five."  Marcella  agreed  and  there  ended  our  con- 
versation. 

I  have  not  been  in  Fouquard's  tea  shop  in  Forty- 
157 


PIERRE    VINTON 

third  Street  since  I  was  married.  I  can  recall  perfectly 
the  last  time  I  was  in  it.  Marcella  and  I  were  having 
tea  at  a  little  marble-topped  table  with  iron  legs  that 
stood  in  the  corner  farthest  from  the  corner  at  which 
the  orchestra  of  three  pieces  plays  every  afternoon. 
The  walls  of  Fouquard's  are  lined  with  mirrors  in  very 
cheap  gilt  frames,  and  Marcella  was  reflected  at  al- 
most every  angle.  She  was  nibbling  a  brioche;  I  was 
gnawing  a  bun. 

"Marcella,"  I  said,  "I  am  going  to  tell  your  Uncle 
Fred." 

I  did  not  finish  that  bun,  and  I  have  never  tasted 
one  since.  The  heroism  of  that  determination  lifted  me 
forever  beyond  buns.  Marcella  too  put  down  her 
brioche — not  finally,  however;  she  still  retains  her 
fondness  for  them — and  said  "Whe-e-e-u"  as  nearly 
as  I  can  remember. 

Even  that  did  not  daunt  me,  and  I  did  tell  Uncle 
Fred,  and  the  next  time  Marcella  and  I  had  tea  to- 
gether we  had  it  brazenly  at  Sherry's,  just  around  the 
corner.  Before  that  time,  however,  we  were  well-known 
customers  at  Fouquard's.  The  hideous  dame  du  comp- 
toir  bowed  to  us,  and  the  waiters  had  even  got  to 
understand  Marcella's  French,  which  was  of  the  pains- 

158 


PIERRE    VINTON 

takingly  incorrect  sort  disseminated  at  a  neighboring 
day-school. 

Yesterday  afternoon  I  once  more  presented  myself 
to  the  hideous  dame  du  comptoir.  She  knew  me  and 
smiled  as  of  old,  and  the  waiter  who  showed  me  to 
a  seat  knew  me  also.  I  ordered  tea  and  brioche  rolls 
and  buns  and  lit  a  cigarette.  The  waiter  brought  the 
tea  and  the  bread  and  let  it  stand  awhile.  I  lit  other 
cigarettes  and  waited,  but  Marcella  never  came. 
Fouquard's  is  not  for  married  people.  It  is  fly-specked 
and  tawdry,  and  its  clientele  is,  I  suspect,  pretty 
nearly  disreputable. 

Presently  I  gave  up  hope  and  went  out.  The  waiter 
who  had  brought  me  the  tea  stopped  as  I  was  nearing 
the  door. 

"  Did  you  not  see  mam'selle  ?  "  he  asked  in  a  tone  of 
surprise. 

I  shook  my  head. 

"She  was  here  ten  minutes  ago.  Here,  right  here," 
and  he  pointed  to  the  dame  du  comptoir.  Then  I  saw 
that  he  was  telling  the  truth,  that  Marcella  had  come 
and  gone  away  again.  I  did  not  blame  her.  I  was 
anxious  to  go  away  again  myself. 

I  met  Goadbye  as  I  was  coming  out  of  Fouquard's. 
159 


PIERRE    VINTON 

He  was  coming  out  of  a  garage  next  door.  He  gave  me 
a  knowing  smile  as  he  passed.  I  had  been  in  rather  a 
hurry  to  get  away  from  the  office,  and  I  suppose  Goad- 
bye  had  no  doubt  that  I  was  conducting  some  disrepu- 
table intrigue  with  Fouquard's  for  a  tryst.  I  wonder 
what  he  would  have  said  if  I  had  told  him  that  I  had 
been  keeping  an  assignation  with  my  wife  and  had  been 
disappointed  into  the  bargain. 

The  disappointment  did  not  have  any  serious  ma- 
terial results,  because  Marcella  sent  me  a  note  by  a 
messenger  asking  me  to  come  to  Babylon  this  after- 
noon on  a  matter  of  "great  importance."  The  note  did 
not  give  any  explanation  of  her  failure  to  meet  me  at 
Fouquard's,  although  it  must  have  been  written  very 
shortly  after  the  hour  of  that  appointment — an  omis- 
sion for  which  I  admire  Marcella.  I  doubt,  moreover,  if 
she  could  have  explained  it  on  paper.  I  am  quite  sure 
I  could  not. 

I  went  down  to  Babylon  on  the  3.15  train.  Marcella 
met  me  with  a  piebald  pony  whose  legs  made  me 
shudder  and  a  diminutive  wicker  cart  of  the  sort  in 
which  governesses  air  their  charges  about  the  streets 
of  New  England  summer  resorts.  Marcella  sat  in  one 
corner  and  I  diagonally  opposite,  and  we  filled  it  un- 

160 


PIERRE    VINTON 

comfortably  full.  She  wore  an  old  weather-stained  polo 
coat  which  made  me  in  city  clothes  feel  vulgarly  over- 
dressed as  I  climbed  in  beside  it. 

"I  had  a  letter  this  morning  from  your  aunt,  Mrs. 
Grandy,"  she  began  as  we  drove  across  the  tracks 
toward  the  open  country. 

"You  are  lucky,"  I  observed.  "You  came  very  near 
having  a  visit  from  her." 

Marcella  shook  the  reins.  "Then  you  knew  what 
was  in  the  letter."  She  lashed  the  pony.  "I  thought 
you  did."  She  lashed  the  pony  again.  "I  suppose  you 
asked  her  to  write  it."  She  put  the  pony  to  a  gallop. 
"Why  don't  you  write  your  own  letter?  Why  did  you 
get  your  aunt ?  " 

I  couldn't  hear  any  more,  because  the  cart  was  mak- 
ing a  fearful  row  and  I  was  holding  tightly  to  the  side 
to  save  myself  from  being  thrown  out,  and  just  as  we 
were  rounding  a  curve  of  the  road  she  burst  out  crying 
and  dropped  the  reins  to  get  her  pocket-handkerchief. 
If  that  pony  had  possessed  as  much  as  one  sound  leg 
I  believe  the  interview  would  have  ended  there.  Per- 
haps that  would  have  been  the  best  way  out  of  it. 
At  the  time  I  could  think  of  no  other  and  I  sat  in 
my  corner  waiting  for  the  catastrophe  and  Marcella 

161 


PEERRE    VINTON 

sat  in  hers  mopping  the  tears  with  the  pocket-handker- 
chief. 

"Stop  him,"  she  sobbed  out. 

"I  can't,"  I  answered. 

"Whoa,"  said  Marcella  with  a  sob. 

The  pony  subsided  gradually  to  a  walk  and  she  put 
away  the  pocket-handkerchief  and  took  up  the  reins. 
Her  style  of  driving  is  startlingly  suggestive.  When 
things  are  going  to  the  deuce  at  a  run  she  drops  the 
reins  and  takes  her  pocket-handkerchief;  when  they 
have  returned  to  an  orderly  progression  she  resumes  the 
reins. 

"Did  you  know  what  was  in  the  letter?"  she  asked, 
temporarily  forgetting  the  charge  that  I  had  dictated  it. 

I  shook  my  head. 

She  pulled  out  a  letter  from  somewhere  beneath  the 
weather-stained  polo  coat,  and  held  it  out  to  me.  I 
took  it  and  tore  it  in  two  and  dropped  the  pieces  over 
the  edge  of  the  pony  cart. 

"That  doesn't  do  any  good,"  she  remarked. 

"And  it  doesn't  do  any  more  harm,  either." 

"She  said  that  I  was  putting  a  stigma  on  you." 

I  recognized  the  accuracy  of  Marcella's  paraphrase; 
stigma  is  a  favorite  word  with  Aunt  Louise. 

1612 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Then  she  added,"  Marcella  continued,  "that  I 
probably  didn't  know  it." 

"Well,  of  course,  you  hadn't  and  you  didn't,"  I 
observed. 

"I  don't  understand." 

I  did  not  quite  understand  myself,  and  I  saw  a 
morass  of  further  misunderstanding  immediately  be- 
fore us. 

"Marcella,"  I  said,  "it  is  perfectly  useless  for  you 
and  me  to  try  to  understand  each  other  through  the 
medium  of  my  aunt,  isn't  it?" 

She  nodded  and  whipped  up  the  pony. 

"I  don't  care  a  bawbee  about  stigmas.  But  I 
know — "  I  stopped. 

"  Know  what  ?  "  asked  Marcella. 

"That  you  have  a  right  to  part  of  everything  I  have 
and  that  you  are  very  silly  not  to  take  it." 

"I  had  a  right,"  said  Marcella,  "but  I  refused. 
Now  I  haven't  a  right  any  longer.  That's  the  law." 

"I  am  not  talking  about  the  law." 

"What  else  is  there  for  you  and  I  to  talk 
about?" 

I,  sitting  in  my  corner  of  the  pony  cart  and  Marcella 
in  hers,  looked  each  into  the  other's  eyes.  Marcella's 

163 


PIERRE    VINTON 

turned  away  first.  "I  think  you  are  talking  like  a 
beast,"  she  said  bitterly. 

"I  have  not  said  anything." 

"I'll  substitute  * ungentlemanly '  then." 

I  laughed.  "You  sound  like  Aunt  Louise." 

For  the  first  time,  her  face,  which  had  been  quite 
colorless,  flushed;  she  turned  again  and  looked  ahead. 

I  felt  a  sudden  desire  to  make  her  cry.  "Ungentle- 
manly,"  I  repeated,  "is  that  all?  I  presume  you  did 
not  marry  me  because  I  was  a  gentleman." 

Marcella  turned.  "I  married  you  for  money,"  she 
said. 

I  perceived  then  that  Marcella  was  trying  to  make 
me  cry. 

"That's  not  true,"  I  returned.  "You  could  not  help 
marrying  me.  You  would  have  married  me  if  I  had  not 
had  a  penny  in  the  world." 

She  turned  on  me  again.  I  saw  I  had  failed  in  my 
attempt  to  make  her  cry,  but  I  had  succeeded  in  making 
her  very  angry. 

"At  any  rate,"  she  retorted,  "I  recovered  my  senses 
fairly  soon." 

"Senses?  Do  you  call  it  sense  to  do  what  you  did? 
To  make  yourself  unhappy  and  me — "  I  paused. 

164 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Make  you  what?"  she  asked  quickly.  Then  as 
quickly  she  recovered  herself.  "Aren't  you  taking  a 
good  deal  for  granted  when  you  say  I  am  un- 
happy ?  " 

"If  you  were  happy  you  would  not  want  to  leave 
and  go  and  make  your  own  living." 

"I  have  no  right  to  ask  my  uncle  to  support  me." 

"You  have  no  right  to  ask  that  of  any  man  except 
me,"  I  replied. 

"And  I  have  no  need  to  ask  it  of  you.  Women 
nowadays  don't  have  to  beg  for  support.  I  have  no 
need  to  ask  help  of  any  man." 

"You  don't  have  to  ask  it  of  me,  Marcella,"  I  re- 
minded her.  "It  is  yours  already.  You  only  have  to 
use  it." 

"It  was  mine,"  she  corrected,  "when  I — loved  you. 
But  it  isn't  now,  because  I  don't." 

It  was  marvellously  lucid.  But  still,  as  the  pony 
jogged  along,  I  sat  still  and  tried  to  understand.  Mar- 
cella also  sat  still  and  stared  ahead  up  the  road. 

"Might  it  not  be  as  well,"  I  suggested  at  length, 
"to  turn?  There  is  nothing  more  to  say,  and  I  believe 
there  is  a  four-thirty  back  to  town." 

"Yes,"  she  assented,  "there  is  a  four-thirty,"  and 
165 


PIERRE    VINTON 

she  pulled  the  pony  up  short.  "Do  you  understand?'* 
she  asked. 

"Perfectly." 

"You  would  not  want  me  to  go  on  living  as  though  I 
loved  you — to  lie  to  you." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  to  have  Marcella  at  this  table 
now,  with  an  arm  across  my  shoulders,  lying  her 
damnedest  would  suit  me  perfectly,  but  in  the  pony 
cart  I  agreed  glibly. 

"There  was  nothing  else  for  me  to  do,"  she  went  on. 

"No,"  I  agreed;  "nothing.  But  really  we  had  best 
turn.  The  four-thirty " 

Marcella  turned  with  abruptness.  "There  is  nothing 
vital  about  the  four-thirty.  At  the  worst,  there  is  the 
five-thirty." 

I  murmured  something  about  a  dinner  engagement. 
I  suppose  the  average  husband  understands  when  his 
wife  divorces  him  that  she  has,  temporarily,  at  any 
rate,  ceased  to  be  passionately  in  love  with  him.  But 
the  fact  held  a  certain  surprise  for  me  even  this  after- 
noon. We  jogged  along  the  road  to  Babylon  in  silence. 
I  have  never  ridden  in  a  vehicle  that  was  so  sickeningly 
uncomfortable.  I  suppose  governesses  and  children 
can  stand  anything.  Once  Marcella  looked  back  at  me 

166 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  I  tried  to  smile  amiably  in  return,  but  she  paid  no 
heed  and  turned  again.  We  might  as  well  have  been 
married,  I  reflected. 

We  crossed  the  tracks  again  and  drew  up  at  the 
same  end  of  the  platform  where  I  had  got  in.  I  rose, 
but  Marcella  motioned  to  me  to  sit  down  again. 

"Just  a  moment,"  she  explained. 

"There  is  no  hurry." 

"I  don't  think,"  she  began,  "that  Mrs.  Grandy  had 
any  right  to  send  me  that  letter.  It  was  impertinent, 
really,  but  the  world  is  full  of  impertinent  people,  and 
I  suppose " 

She  paused  and  sat  still. 

"And  I  suppose,"  she  continued,  "that  they  will  all 
think  she  did  quite  right." 

"Possibly,"  I  rejoined;  "which  doesn't  matter  to 
you  or  me  in  the  slightest  possible  degree." 

"Oh,  yes,  it  does." 

I  shook  my  head.  "It  should  not,"  I  insisted. 

"But  it  does,"  said  Marcella.  "It  does  and  it  always 
will.  So  I  sent  for  you  to  tell  you  that  I  am  not  going 
to  teach  music."  And  she  put  down  the  whip  and  held 
out  her  hand. 

I  was  surprised,  but  to  a  much  greater  degree  I  was 
167 


PIERRE    VINTON 

interested.  "You  are  not  going  to  do  this  thing,"  I 
asked,  "because  of  some  possible  effect  upon  me?" 

Marcella  drew  herself  up.  "I  wouldn't,"  she  began. 

"Don't,"  I  begged.  "I  understand,  only  what  are 
you  going  to  do?" 

"Go  on  living  here." 

"But  you  can't.  You  are  unhappy." 

"There  comes  the  four-thirty,"  said  Marcella,  and 
I  heard  the  toot  of  a  distant  steam-engine.  "You  have 
to  get  in  on  the  other  side." 

I  climbed  out  and  stood  looking  over  the  edge  of  the 
pony  cart.  Marcella's  manner  in  regard  to  the  four- 
thirty  was  decisive.  I  understood  that  the  five-thirty 
had  become  impossible.  It  may  have  been  imagination, 
but  she  looked  very  lonely  and  unhappy,  and — this  was 
probably  due  to  the  polo  coat — she  looked  poor  too. 
She  was  all  this,  I  reflected,  because  she  could  not 
completely  get  rid  of  me.  She,  I,  and  the  law  had  each 
done  all  it  could,  and  still  Marcella's  life  and  mine  re- 
mained entangled.  We  have  broken,  cut,  and  hacked 
away  every  tie  we  can  get,  and  still  we  are  not  free. 

I  did  not  tell  her  good-by.  It  would  have  been 
ridiculous  under  the  circumstances.  I  turned  away  with- 
out saying  anything,  and  got  on  the  four-thirty  on  the 

168 


PIERRE    VINTON 

wrong  side.  If  I  had  cared  truly  more  for  Marcella's 
welfare  than  my  own  I  would,  of  course,  have  got  under 
it  instead  of  on  it,  and  so  out  of  her  way  forever. 

There  was,  doubtless,  as  the  common  saying  runs, 
a  great  deal  of  truth  in  what  Marcella  said,  but  there 
was  undoubtedly  a  great  deal  of  mortification  as  well, 
and  unfortunately  the  truth  was  for  the  benefit  of 
society  at  large,  while  the  other  was  exclusively  re- 
served for  me.  I  had  that  reflection  as  company  on 
the  four-thirty.  Vulgarly  put,  I  tad  been  well  whipped 
and  then  thrown  a  bone  if  I  happened  to  care  for  it. 
And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  happened  not  to  care  for  it 
at  all.  I  did  not  care  a  pin's  worth  for  the  world's 
opinion  of  me  in  regard  to  my  divorced  wife's  earning 
a  living,  and  I  had  distinctly  and  even  rudely  said  as 
much  to  both  sides  in  the  dispute.  In  consequence,  the 
sides  had  united  in  blaming  all  their  grievances  on  me. 
I  was  to  blame  for  allowing  my  wife  to  earn  a  living. 
I  was  to  blame  for  thrusting  my  self-interest  upon  a 
woman  who  had  publicly  proclaimed  that  she  wished 
to  have  nothing  to  do  with  me.  Mrs.  Grandy  I  could 
forgive;  she  was  only  a  fool.  Mrs.  Vinton  knew  better. 
She  knew  that  I  wished  only  her  happiness  and  was 
endeavoring  to  do  no  more  than  secure  it.  She  had  de- 

169 


PIERRE    VINTON 

liberately  made  use  of  the  other's  folly  to  make  of  me 
a  fool.  I  felt  I  could  not  forgive  Marcella.  Her  con- 
duct was  spiteful;  it  was  mean;  it  was  intensely  femi- 
nine, perhaps,  but  it  was  thoroughly  unwomanly. 

To  think  so  of  Marcella  was  to  revolutionize  my 
manner  of  thinking.  It  was  her  superiority  to  these 
qualities  of  meanness  and  pettiness  that  had  placed  her 
above  all  other  women.  A  chaotic  condition  of  mental 
affairs  ensued  if  the  truth  was  otherwise.  If  she  was 
this,  then  what  was  I  ?  I  was  standing  by  the  stern  rail 
of  the  Long  Island  ferry-boat  looking  down  at  the 
black  water,  for  it  had  got  dark  on  my  way  up  on  the 
four-thirty.  All  the  lights  on  the  river  were  aflame,  and 
the  great  bridges  hung  outlined  in  dots  of  fire.  It  was 
the  hour  for  the  rush  from  Manhattan,  and  the  re- 
turning boats  were  almost  empty.  There  was  nobody 
at  the  stern  except  me,  and  a  woman  dressed  in  black 
and  thickly  veiled  whom  I  had  once  glanced  at  and 
then  forgot.  Suddenly  I  heard  a  voice  ask:  "Who  are 
you  talking  to?" 

It  was  the  woman  in  black  who  had  come  behind  me 
unnoticed.  It  was  very  dark  out  there,  and  I  was  taken 
quite  by  surprise,  and  she  was  heavily  veiled,  where- 
fore I  entirely  failed  to  recognize  her  at  first. 

170 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  suppose,"  she  went  on,  "you  feel  like  asking  the 
same  question?"  And  she  lifted  the  veil  that  hung 
from  her  hat  brim.  Then  I  saw  Barbara  Gilbert.  "You 
were  cursing  some  one.  Who  was  it?" 

"Myself,  naturally,"  I  answered. 

She  leaned  over  the  rail  beside  me  and  looked  at  the 
great  shining  arc  of  the  new  bridge.  "When  I  come 
into  New  York  from  this  side  at  night,"  she  said,  "I 
don't  feel  big  enough  even  to  be  cursed." 

"That  is  the  case,"  I  answered,  "when  you  think  of 
yourself  as  a  rational  being.  I  was  regarding  myself  as 
a  jackass;  whereupon  I  loomed  big  enough " 

"Don't,"  she  interrupted,  "talk  of  jackasses  out 
here." 

I  had  never  thought  of  the  view  of  the  East  River 
from  the  back  end  of  a  ferry-boat  as  inspiring,  but 
somehow,  as  she  spoke,  I  felt  as  though  I  had  been 
vulgar. 

"I  have  been  looking  forward  to  this  all  afternoon," 
she  went  on.  "I  have  been  at  my  aunt's,  at  Oyster 
Bay,  on  business,  talking,"  she  gave  a  queer  little 
shudder,  "of  money.  And  all  the  while  I  was  really 
thinking  of  coming  out  here  on  the  way  back  and 
getting  clean.  When  I  first  saw  somebody  else  here 

171 


PIERRE    VINTON 

too  I  felt  insulted,"  she  added,  "until  I  recognized 
you." 

It  was  the  first  time  I  had  spoken  to  her  since  I  had 
driven  her  home  on  the  night  of  her  father's  death. 
That  was  less  than  a  month  ago.  I  was  thinking  of 
this  and  of  the  great  change  in  her  since  then,  natural 
enough  perhaps,  but  puzzling  when  felt  for  this  time. 
As  if  she  read  something  of  my  thoughts,  she  said: 
"You  were  very  kind  to  me.  I  never  thanked  you,  I 
never  can,  but  I  felt  it." 

Then,  as  if  she  wished  to  turn  from  that  altogether, 
she  asked  me,  while  I  murmured  some  reply:  "Tell 
me  why  you  were  so  displeased  with  yourself. " 

"Oh,"  I  answered,  "a  lifelong  list  of  reasons.  How 
is  Laurie?" 

I  heard  a  little  laugh,  and  she  looked  at  me  as  com- 
posedly as  before.  "Laurie  and  I  are  quite  out,"  she 
answered. 

"Good  Lord,"  I  exclaimed,  "and  you  don't  mind 
any  more  than  that." 

"Not  really.  At  least,  I  think  not.  You  see  things 
got  too  thick  for  Laurie  and  me.  I  mean  circumstances 
got  too  big;  they  sort  of  threw  us  in  the  shade." 

"I  don't  see,"  I  said.  "To  be  honest,  I  don't  see." 
172 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Well  then,  I  don't  think  I  can  explain.  He  under- 
stands and  I  understand,  but  I  doubt  if  either  of  us 
could  put  it  into  words." 

"Perhaps,"  I  said,  "I  do  see  a  glimmer  now." 

"We  thought,"  she  explained,  "at  such  a  time  each 
would  mean  a  great  deal  to  the  other,  and  we  found 
out  that  neither  mattered  at  all." 

"So,"  I  reflected,  "another  occupation's  gone." 

"What  did  you  say?"  asked  Barbara. 

"I  was  wondering,"  I  answered,  "what  I  was  going 
to  do  next." 

"It's  my  turn  not  to  understand,"  she  said. 

"And  I  can't  explain,"  I  answered. 

"You  are  full  of  mysteries,"  said  Barbara. 

"It's  the  place,"  I  suggested.  "So  Laurie  is  gone. 
I'm  sorry." 

"You  needn't  be,"  she  replied,  "certainly  not  for 
me,  and  I  don't  think  for  him,  either.  He  was  very 
nice  about  it  all  and  said  he  was  heart-broken,  but  I 
knew  he  wasn't  and  he  knew  I  knew  it.  So  there  you 
are.  Laurie  isn't  built  for  rough  weather,  and  neither 
am  I,  I  am  afraid." 

There  was  a  deeper  touch  of  seriousness  about  her 
last  words  that  made  me  look  at  her.  "  I  hope  you  will 
never  find  it,"  I  said. 

173 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"What  is  the  sense  of  hoping,"  she  answered,  "when 
it's  already  here?" 

While  she  spoke  the  boat's  speed  slackened,  and  we 
heard  the  rush  of  water  as  the  engines  reversed.  She 
began  to  rearrange  her  veil.  "I  hate  to  go  off,"  she 
said. 

"Don't,"  I  suggested.  "We  can  stay  where  we  are 
for  a  return  trip." 

She  had  moved  out  a  little  from  the  rail  and  was 
standing  in  the  light  from  the  cabin  doors,  so  that  I 
could  see  her  clearly  for  the  first  time.  I  thought  she 
was  rather  more  beautiful  in  black  than  ever. 

"I  don't  believe,"  she  cried,  "anything  could  be 
sillier;  but  if  you  will  I  should  love  it." 

We  moved  a  little  toward  what  would  now  be  the 
bow  of  the  boat  so  as  to  get  out  of  the  coming  crowd. 

"It  will  be  colder  out  here,"  she  suggested,  and  she 
insisted  that  I  put  on  the  coat  I  was  carrying  on  my 
arm.  Presently  they  came,  the  crowd,  pouring  through 
the  cabin  and  hemmed  us  in  our  corner. 

"It'll  be  all  right  again  going  back,"  I  predicted. 

"I  don't  mind  as  it  is,"  she  replied,  looking  over- 
board. "You  need  never  know  they  are  there." 

Perhaps  she  did  not,  but  I  did;  and  I  enjoyed  the 
174 


PIERRE    VINTON 

knowledge  of  their  presence.  Individually,  perhaps,  I 
did  not  feel  attracted,  but  en  masse  they  warmed  me 
with  a  sense  of  sympathy  and  common  humanity,  these 
hard-toiling  men  and  women  going  home  after  a  day's 
labor.  I  liked  the  feel  of  them  close  around  me.  And  I 
envied  them.  Ah,  in  the  very  core  of  my  soul  was  envy. 
I  too  was  going  home,  but  after  such  a  day  and  to 
such  a  home.  They  perhaps  envied  me,  but  that  was 
their  folly.  Mine  was  a  dearly  bought  wisdom.  Among 
them  I  felt  of  them  in  spirit,  but  separated  by  injus- 
tice. I  too  had  worked,  and  was  willing,  God  knows, 
to  work  again  for  their  reward.  In  my  fine  clothes  I 
felt  among  them  like  an  alien,  an  outcast,  robbed  and 
homeless. 

Presently  Barbara  looked  up  at  me  as  if  a  little 
puzzled  by  my  silence.  "Please,"  she  said  impatiently, 
"please  button  your  coat.  The  wind  here  is  very  keen." 

I  had  put  on  the  coat  obediently  enough,  but  ap- 
parently had  neglected  to  fasten  it.  I  did  so  now  in  an 
absent-minded  way.  Suddenly  she  gave  a  little  ex- 
clamation of  impatience  and  pushing  away  my  hands 
fastened  it  herself. 

She  was  hah"  laughing  up  at  me  as  her  fingers  were 
busy  about  my  throat. 

175 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"You  need  somebody  to  take  care  of  you,"  she  said. 

"Will  you  take  the  job?"  I  asked. 

She  turned  away  and  looked  over  the  side  again. 
"How  neatly  put!"  she  exclaimed. 

"I  mean  it,  Barbara,"  I  said. 

There  were  probably  a  dozen  people  listening.  I 
knew  it,  but  I  did  not  care;  neither  did  Barbara. 

"Don't  ask  me  why,"  she  answered,  "but  I  can't." 

Then  the  boat  slipped  smoothly  into  her  moorings, 
and  the  crowd  surged  around  us  preventing  speech. 
We  stood  there  with  our  backs  to  the  outgoing  and 
then  incoming  passengers,  and  neither  of  us  said  a 
word.  Presently,  when  all  was  quiet  again,  she  began 
to  speak.  "You  mustn't  think  I  don't  mean  this.  I 
do.  I  have  thought  of  it  before.  You  haven't,  I  suppose, 
but  I  have.  You  see,  I  must  marry  now,  and  I  have 
thought — well,  to  tell  the  truth — I  have  thought  of 
pretty  nearly  everybody,  but  of  you  among  the  first. 
Then  mamma  has  thought  of  it  too."  She  laughed. 
"You  guessed  that,  didn't  you?" 

"It  seems,"  I  answered,  "that  every  circumstance 
favors  except  the  man." 

"No,"  she  said  quickly,  "it's  not  the  man.  It's  a 
woman." 

176 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"What  woman?" 

"Where  are  you  coming  from?"  she  asked. 

Then,  of  course,  I  understood.  Perhaps  I  under- 
stood the  better  of  the  two. 

We  had  got  out  of  the  slip  now  and  were  gliding 
smoothly  through  the  dark  water. 

"You  do  understand,  don't  you,  that  I  am  not 
thinking  of  anybody  else  who  might  answer  differently? 
Perhaps  I  am  not  thinking  at  all.  I  just  feel  that  way. 
I  always  have.  I  don't  blame  anybody  who  feels  dif- 
ferently. Only,  I  can't  myself.  Do  you  know  what  I 
mean?" 

Again  I  felt  that  I  knew  what  she  meant  a  great 
deal  better  than  she  knew  it.  I  only  said  hah*  of  this, 
and  for  fear  she  should  guess  the  other  half  in  her 
queer  woman's  way  I  said:  "You  needn't  worry 
about  that  anybody  else.  There  won't  be  anybody 
else.  If,  after  this,  another  person  should  make  a 
different  answer,  look  at  it  from  another  point  of  view. 
I  should  regret  having  asked  the  question.  So  you  see 
there  is  no  possible  chance  of  my  asking  it." 

And  in  this,  certainly,  I  spoke  from  the  deep  of  the 
heart.  This  was  the  end  of  such  matters  for  me,  and  I 
knew  it  and  said  it. 

177 


PIERRE    VINTON 

As  a  matter  of  honest  fact,  I  suppose  I  knew  it  be- 
fore. Only  the  crowd  was  too  much  for  me.  Democracy 
is  the  spirit  of  cities.  When  we  are  in  the  mob  we 
think  as  the  mob,  we  feel  as  the  mob,  we  want  what  the 
mob  wants.  Henceforth  I  must  avoid  such  company; 
the  clay  pot  must  keep  away  from  the  brass  ones. 
For  I  cannot  have  what  the  mob  wants  and  gets. 
In  it,  nevertheless  I  am  not  of  it,  but  a  man  of  a 
different  kind.  Indeed,  not  a  whole  man.  And  that  other 
part  of  me,  that  which  wants  a  wife  and  a  home  with 
children  and  the  quiet  end  of  a  day's  work,  should 
be  put  decently  away,  not  dragged  awkwardly  through 
the  world  any  longer.  Yes,  that  part  had  best  be  put 
an  end  to,  and  with  it  these  overscrawled  pages 
which,  after  all,  are  only  the  record  of  its  post-mortem 
antics. 


178 


BOOK    II 


IT  was  how  many  months  ago  I  dined  with  Mrs. 
Axson  in  her  little  Wedgwood  dining-room,  which  is 
so  extraordinarily  becoming  to  her?  This  is  October; 
that  was  April.  It  was  that  many  months  ago. 

We  dined  alone,  for  we  had  affairs  of  business  to 
discuss.  The  maid  who  served  spoke  only  French,  so 
we  were  quite  alone.  Generally  Mrs.  Axson's  dinners 
are  attractive  rather  than  sustaining,  but  then  the 
menu  was  aldermanic.  Further,  we  had  Burgundy  and 
brandy,  which  I  am  sure  had  been  given  her,  for  no 
woman,  except  possibly  a  washerwoman,  would  spend 
so  much  money  on  brandy. 

I  was  to  advise  her  about  the  purchase  of  some  bonds, 
but  it  seemed  impossible  to  begin  such  a  subject.  We 
fought  shy  of  it  unmistakably.  I  was  quite  sure  that 
my  advice  was  not  half  so  good  as  the  dinner,  and  she 
had  a  reason  of  her  own.  She  looked  very  charming 
in  pale  yellow,  and  was  inexpressibly  fragrant.  Her  pink 
finger-tips  on  the  white  cloth  epitomized  the  sugges- 

181 


PIERRE    VINTON 

tion  of  her  toilet.  It  seemed  to  me  that  she  had  bathed 
in  milk  and  her  clothes  had  lain  in  rose-leaves.  We 
talked  of  very  old  days  in  the  country,  when  we  used 
to  race  horses  together  on  the  soft  country  roads  about 
Westbury  and  go  swimming  together  in  a  singularly 
informal  manner. 

"They  were  soft  roads  then,"  I  recalled,  "and  no 
motors,  praised  be  Heaven ! " 

"And  it  is  lucky  they  were  soft  too,"  said  Lilly,  "or 
we  would  have  broken  half  a  dozen  necks  apiece.  Do 
you  remember  ?  " 

I  did  remember  once  very  distinctly — Lilly,  a  little 
bunch  of  brown  habit  in  the  brown  dust  and  a  brown 
pony  browsing  peacefully  on  the  ditch  side. 

"I  have  the  mark  of  that  fall  now,"  she  told  me, 
and  held  up  one  round  white  arm  and  vowed  it  was 
crooked,  had  been  for  all  these  years. 

"How  I  used  to  adore  you  then,  Pierre! " 

I  felt  alarmed.  It  had  never  occurred  to  me  be- 
fore. 

Lilly  nodded,  and  I  thought  she  blushed  just  a 
little.  "Yes,  I  did;  and  when  you  went  off  to  Saint 
Mark's,  do  you  remember,  I  hoped  you  were  going 
to  kiss  me  and  you  didn't.  I  remember  I  cried." 

182 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"But  how  about  the  next  spring  when  I  wanted  to 
kiss  you  and  you  would  not  let  me?  Do  you  re- 
member ?  " 

"Oh,  yes,  but  I  was  in  love  with  the  Holworthy  boy 
then." 

I  felt  a  dislike  of  Holworthy  and  tried  to  remember 
who  he  was.  It  was  queer,  though,  I  had  never  sus- 
pected Lilly's  passion.  Still  it  titillated  the  vanity  of 
the  present  hour  very  perceptibly,  as  it  was,  and  I  felt 
grateful  to  her  for  confessing.  I  felt  a  little  gauche,  too, 
in  not  insinuating  something  of  the  sort  on  my  part. 
One  always  likes  such  confessions  to  be  reciprocal. 

The  Burgundy  tickled  my  imagination  deliciously. 
Lilly  began  to  recall  other  things,  some  of  which  I  had 
shamefully  forgotten.  I  confessed  the  lapses  too  some- 
times, and  sometimes  there  were  long  pauses,  and  the 
musical  sound  of  the  French  clock  in  the  drawing- 
room  beyond  was  clearly  audible  in  the  Wedgwood 
dining-room.  And  sometimes,  in  those  pauses,  I  was 
not  thinking  of  the  past  at  all  but  of  the  present  and 
what  would  it  be  like  if  I  had  not  forgotten  to  kiss 
Lilly  good-by  when  I  went  to  Saint  Mark's  and  there 
had  been  no  Holworthy  boy  or  anybody  like  him  and 
this  was  my  Wedgwood  dining-room.  The  slim  little 

183 


PIERRE    VINTON 

maid  moved  about  without  disturbing  at  all  those 
pleasant  dreams. 

"And  do  you  recollect  the  summer  in  the  Thousand 
Islands  ?  Let  me  see,  I  was  sixteen  then  and  you  were 
nineteen.  Oh,  what  a  summer!  After  all,  there  is 
something  about  sixteen." 

And  I  recalled  too  a  boat  race  of  that  summer  which 
Lilly  and  I  had  lost  disgracefully  by  hours,  lying  be- 
calmed that  long  out  on  the  river,  and  how  we  crept 
in  before  an  almost  impalpable  breeze  just  at  dusk. 
We  had  not  gone  to  the  house  then;  we  had  sat  on  the 
dock. 

The  pale  gold  of  Mrs.  Axson's  little  head  glimmered 
a  moment,  as  she  leaned  to  straighten  a  candle. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  remember." 

We  had  said  things  on  that  dock. 

"I  wonder,"  I  mused,  "why  I  remember  these  things 
so  clearly." 

"Perhaps  you  have  said  them  so  often  since,"  she 
explained. 

"Perhaps,"  I  agreed. 

"Of  course,"  said  Lilly. 

"No.  Not  'of  course,'  only  *  perhaps.' ' 

There  was  a  very  long  pause,  and  the  French  clock 
184 


PIERRE    VINTON 

ticked  loudly  in  the  drawing-room.  The  maid  came  in 
with  coffee  and  went  out  again. 

"And  then  you  went  abroad,"  I  said  suddenly. 

"Yes.  Then  I  went  abroad." 

She  met  Axson  abroad,  and  was  married  there. 

Lilly  got  up.  "When  you  finish  your  coffee  come 
into  the  drawing-room.  I  must  take  a  peep  at 
Tom." 

Although  I  did  not  hear  a  sound  she  was  already  in 
the  drawing-room  when  I  got  there,  sitting  with  her 
feet  tucked  up  on  a  chaise-longue.  She  was  looking 
down  at  the  clear  little  fire.  She  looked  up  as  I  entered 
with  the  half -absent  smile  of  one  aroused  from  pleasant 
thoughts. 

She  took  a  cigarette  from  my  case,  leaned  back  among 
the  cushions,  and  smoked  brightly. 

"How  sentimental  we  were!"  she  said. 

"How  is  Tom?"  I  asked. 

"Sound,"  she  answered. 

"You  came  back  very  noiselessly." 

"I  didn't  want  to  interrupt  your  coffee.  I  am  proud 
of  my  coffee."  Then  she  poured  out  a  glass  of  brandy 
from  the  liqueur  stand  at  her  elbow  and  held  it  up 
toward  me.  "I  am  proud  of  this  too." 

185 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"You  see  you  are  an  honored  guest,  M'sieu.  And 
now" — she  settled  her  body  among  the  cushions — "and 
now  the  bonds." 

I  have  seldom  forgot  anything  so  completely  as 
those  bonds. 

"Dear  me,"  said  Lilly.  "Forgot  'em!  All  this  fatted 
calf  for  nothing?" 

"The  original  fatted  calf  was  not  killed  for  bonds," 
I  answered. 

"What  was  it  killed  for,  then?" 
"For — well,  let's  say  for  Auld  Lang  Syne." 
"Well,  at  any  rate,  it  was  bought  for  bonds." 
I  disputed  even  this.  Sitting  on  the  edge  of  the  chaise- 
longue,  it  seemed  to  me  that  bonds  were  not  very 
apropos.  I  was  thinking  of  what  awaited  me  when  I 
left  the  room  and  its  delicate  charm,  of  Brown  sprawl- 
ing on  a  sofa  asleep,  surrounded  by  crumpled  news- 
paper and  tobacco  smoke,  in  place  of  Mrs.  Axson. 
The  withered,  parched  craving  in  me  for  the  delicacy, 
the   daintiness   of   intimate   womanhood   grew   green 
again  in  my  soul,  as  I  put  my  hands  on  the  back  of 
the  lounge  and  bent  over  her.  I  felt  deliciously  re- 
freshed, as  if  I  had  entered  into  a  flower  shop  from  a 
crowded  street. 

186 


PIERRE    VINTON 

She  moved  imperceptibly  and  raised  her  arm,  and 
I  found  I  was  looking  across  it  into  her  eyes. 

"Why  do  you  do  this?"  she  asked  very  quietly. 

"What  a  very  silly  question!"  I  answered. 

"No.  It  isn't  silly."  She  took  both  my  hands  in  hers 
and  held  them  in  front  of  me.  "Because  I  have  some- 
thing to  tell  you."  She  paused,  and  the  little  glass 
clock  on  the  mantel  began  to  chime. 

"What  is  it?"  I  asked.  "Is  it  bad  news  or  good?" 

"Ah!  That  I  don't  know."  She  paused  again.  The 
little  clock  ceased.  And  as  the  last  note  ended  she 
said:  "Peter,  Marcella  is  going  to  be  married." 

Presently  I  felt  my  hands  released,  and  next  Lilly 
was  standing  beside  me  by  the  mantel. 

"You  didn't  know  it  then,"  she  was  saying. 

"Of  course,  I  didn't  know  it." 

"She  wrote  me  yesterday.  I  imagine  it  is  rather 
sudden." 

"Yes,  rather,"  I  answered.  "Who  is  the  other  per- 
son?" 

"Stewart  Dewar,  of  course.  Didn't  you  know?" 

Then  I  had  a  strange  feeling  that  I  had  known  for 
a  long  time,  that  it  had  all  happened  many  years  ago, 
only  I  couldn't  precisely  remember  when.  It  confused 

187 


PIERRE    VINTON 

me.  There  were  so  many  other  things  I  wanted  to 
think  of  and  could  not  because  of  that  obsession. 
Lilly's  voice  speaking  to  me  sounded  queer. 

"Pierre,  go  and  get  your  hat  and  take  a  walk." 

And  I  obeyed  like  a  child.  While  I  was  in  the  hall, 
looking  for  my  things,  I  heard  her  call  me.  I  looked  in 
the  door;  she  was  still  standing  as  I  had  left  her. 

"Pierre,"  she  said,  "you  haven't  told  me  that  you 
enjoyed  the  evening." 

I  told  her  something  and  went  away. 

I  was  in  the  hands  of  horror  when  I  left  that  place. 
Marriage  is  a  horrible  thing  to  a  man  if  he  loves  the 
woman  he  has  married.  It  is  many  other  things  as  well, 
and  all  of  them  beautiful;  but  always,  to  a  lover,  it  is 
horrible  too.  Perhaps  one  reason  may  be  that  thereby 
a  fundamental  lie  of  human  life  is  displayed  naked 
before  his  eyes.  That  is  always  horrible.  To  me  the 
preservation  of  that  falsehood  as  an  immaculate  truth 
has  been  a  principle  of  existence,  and  now  I  was  told 
I  must  share  my  secret  with  another  man.  I  felt  how 
much  easier  it  would  have  been  to  take  her  life  than 
to  share  her  so.  Such  an  act  appeared  to  me  heroic  by 
the  contrast,  sublime,  the  true  apotheosis  of  love.  Ah ! 
sometimes  I  wonder  whether  if  women  could  read 

188 


PIERRE    VINTON 

men's  minds  the  mystery  of  themselves  would  ever  be 
quite  so  marvellous  again. 

I  am  quite  aware  that  physical  jealousy  is  a  fair 
diagnosis  of  my  emotional  state  when  I  left  the  Clin- 
ton. But  that  is  only  a  name,  and  one  of  my  symptoms 
was  a  disgust  with  names.  I  was  feeling,  not  thinking, 
and  names  to  me  then  were  of  no  earthly  use.  I  threw 
them  off,  as  I  walked  down  the  dark  street,  and  bade 
my  mind  go  naked  and  unfed.  Names  had  been  its 
food  and  clothing  long  enough.  I  gave  it  instead  the 
strong  drink  of  pure  emotion.  So,  in  reality,  I  was 
drunk,  but  gifted  with  that  strange  lucidity  of  thought 
which  often  gleams  through  the  chaos  of  a  drunkard's 
brain.  Almost,  as  if  in  the  actual  delirium  of  alcohol, 
I  had  conceived  of  the  world  I  live  in  as  overrun  with 
animals,  driven  wild  with  appetites  whose  causes, 
purposes,  even  satisfactions  they  were  ignorant  of,  the 
kennel  of  a  raving  pack.  I  could  fairly  see  it,  a  vast 
plain  in  a  dim  light  and  the  black,  uncouth  shapes 
writhing  and  falling — and  I  irresistibly  driven  on  by 
the  supreme  appetite. 

I  stood  on  a  New  York  street  corner,  and  felt  lay 
hold  of  me  the  oldest  fever  in  the  world,  that  despair 
of  life  itself  which  first  peopled  the  air  with  demons 

189 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  undermined  the  earth  with  hell.  In  such  chaos, 
what  hope  was  there  except  in  the  sharpest  tooth  ?  Was 
there  any? 

Looking  back  now,  I  see  that  figure  standing  on  a 
New  York  street  corner  in  a  very  detached  and  im- 
personal way,  a  distraught  man  standing  in  a  world 
overthrown  into  total  darkness  and  given  over  to  the 
spirits  thereof.  A  tragic  figure,  a  human  being  in  honest 
doubt  of  a  divine  law  in  the  universe.  Now,  a  very 
little  thing  had  sufficed  to  work  this  ruin,  merely  the 
knowledge  that  a  woman  who  had  belonged  to  him 
could  belong  to  somebody  else.  That  does  not  cer- 
tainly seem  a  sufficient  cause  for  such  disaster.  Men, 
surely,  should  have  their  lives  more  firmly  based  if 
they  would  deserve  the  name  of  man.  Very  true, 
perhaps;  very  fine  sounding,  certainly;  but  the  naked 
truth  is  all  men  are  in  the  last  analysis  as  this  man  was. 
Every  man's  life  has  just  so  narrow  a  pediment  as 
his.  Have  I  not  known  men  when  even  the  lack  of  a 
drug  would  deliver  them  over  to  a  very  material  hell, 
and  others  to  whom  a  loss  of  dollars  meant  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  universe  ?  At  this  detached  and  impersonal 
view-point  I  do  not  find  this  figure  so  contemptible 
or  in  any  way  weaker  than  his  fellows.  Indeed,  it  seems 

190 


PIERRE    VINTON 

to  me  rather  that  this  man's  plight  was  of  a  nobler 
kind  than  most,  and  that  he  who  bases  life  upon  love 
of  a  woman  builds  boldly. 

It  must  have  been  an  appreciable  length  of  time  I 
stood  there  so.  I  awoke.  The  delirium  or  whatever  it 
was  had  passed.  Instead,  I  was  looking  down  a  long, 
black  street  like  a  tunnel  with  a  flare  of  light  at  the 
end.  The  light,  I  recognized,  streamed  from  the  en- 
trance to  a  theatre  and  beneath  was  a  passing  throng 
of  men  and  women.  I  felt  as  if  I  had  somehow  dropped 
into  this  world  from  some  other  and,  giddy  from  the 
fall,  I  put  out  my  hand  and  touched  the  cold,  hard 
stone  of  a  great  building.  Somebody  was  walking  to- 
ward me  down  the  dark  street  and  the  flick-flack  of 
footfalls  echoed  between  the  houses.  Little  by  little, 
through  such  sensations,  the  perceptions  of  reality 
came  to  me.  This  was,  the  other  had  been  delirium. 

But  not  always.  Once  that  delirium  had  been  reality 
and  this  world  of  mine  a  dream.  Suddenly  a  greater 
light  broke  through  a  greater  darkness.  If  this  was, 
and  the  other  madness,  if  those  distant  black  shapes 
were  men  and  women  and  not  the  animals  I  had  seen, 
if  this  had  been  evolved  from  the  other,  then  there  must 
be  an  eternal  equity.  I  did  not  follow  the  thought  or 

191 


PIERRE    VINTON 

question  the  principle.  Its  mere  existence  there  in  the 
dark  with  the  other  so  close  by  was  enough.  I  have 
heard  Broadway  called  many  bad  names,  but  I  looked 
at  it  as  Paradise. 

What  followed  was  perhaps  natural  for  a  man  who 
had  reached  this  state  of  emotional  excitement.  What 
I  wished  to  do,  what  I  felt  I  had  to  do,  was  to  account 
to  myself  for  this  horror  which  had  seized  upon  me 
at  the  thought  of  this  marriage.  It  was  not  balked  ap- 
petite, for  I  had  voluntarily  surrendered  the  gratifica- 
tion of  that  and  had  proved  that  I  was  capable  of  per- 
fecting the  sacrifice.  I  may  have  failed  as  a  husband, 
but  in  divorce  I  was  impeccable.  My  honest  self-con- 
sciousness was  without  reproach  there.  It  may  have 
been  jealousy.  It  is  easy  enough  to  give  the  mystery 
a  name  and  throw  it  aside;  but  for  my  part  I  could 
not  get  rid  of  it  so.  No;  it  was  none  of  these.  It  was 
not  lust;  it  was  not  jealousy.  It  was  something  in  no 
way  related  to  such  things;  something  quite  different, 
of  a  higher  nature,  of  vastly  greater  power.  What  was 
it  ?  As  I  slowly  walked  on  the  answer  came,  the  trium- 
phant consciousness  awoke  in  me  that  I  had  somehow 
become  an  instrument  of  that  law  which  stretched 
from  Broadway  to  the  beasts,  and  incalculably  farther, 

IM 


PIERRE    VINTON 

that  I  was  in  my  horror  an  infinitesimal  means  to  its 
vast  mysterious  purpose. 

I  remember  only  one  sensation  of  my  life  like  that — 
swimming  off  the  Rhode  Island  coast  far  out,  too  far 
out  I  was  beginning  to  fear,  and  suddenly  feeling  under 
my  feet  the  lift  of  a  comber  rushing  shoreward.  The 
feel  of  that  big  breaker,  as  if  there  was  the  whole 
might  of  the  ocean  behind  it  shoving  me  irresistibly 
forward,  faster  and  faster,  headlong  toward  firm 
ground !  I  felt  it  again. 

Those  are  rare  moments  in  a  man's  life  when  he  feels 
all  the  energies  of  his  consciousness  pull  together  to 
one  purpose.  I  felt  it  now.  I  had  surrendered,  as  it 
were,  my  will-power,  given  myself  over  to  another 
power  outside  of  myself,  which  I  believed  to  be  right 
and  knew  to  be  irresistible.  My  duty  was  only  to 
fulfil  its  decrees.  This  marriage  was  a  thing  abhorrent, 
not  to  me  but  to  the  force  of  which  I  was  a  manifes- 
tation, and  to  prevent  it  was  only  to  f ulfil  the  law  of 
my  existence,  the  law  that  stretched  from  Broadway 
to  the  beasts. 

Yes.  That  was  fanaticism.  I  recognize  it  now. 
Though  I  did  not  then. 

It  was  still  early,  far  short  of  midnight,  but  I  had 
193 


PIERRE    VINTON 

got  pretty  far  down-town  I  discovered  by  looking  at  a 
street  sign.  I  was  at  Ninth  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue. 
I  found  a  cab  a  few  blocks  away  in  front  of  the  Cafe 
Lafayette;  drove  up-town  to  the  club  on  the  chance 
that  I  would  find  Dewar  there.  I  did  not.  He  had  not 
been  there  that  evening,  the  man  at  the  door  told  me. 
He  was  not  at  his  apartment  but  was  thought  to  be 
in  the  country,  they  told  me  there. 

As  I  was  turning  away  from  the  desk  at  the  Gotham 
a  party  of  women  passed  me  coming  in  from  the  street. 
They  had  evidently  been  to  a  theatre.  One  of  them 
seemed  to  know  me  and  bowed.  As  I  stood  there  un- 
determined what  to  do  I  overheard  a  half  dozen  words 
of  their  conversation  while  they  waited  for  the  lift. 
They  thought  I  was  drunk  and  were  whispering  about 
the  pity  of  it.  It  was  not  an  unnatural  mistake,  for 
when  I  glanced  in  a  mirror  I  saw  a  dishevelled,  horrid- 
looking  individual,  somewhat  resembling  me.  The 
sight  made  me  realize  the  ridiculousness  of  my  hot 
haste.  And  I  drove  straight  home. 


194 


II 

DfiWAR'S  office  windows  look  down  on  old  Trinity 
churchyard,  and  as  I  stood  at  one  of  them  next  morn- 
ing I  could  not  help  reflecting  that  there  was  a  certain 
similarity  between  us,  old  Trinity  and  me.  It  was 
early  and  Dewar  was  in  one  room  with  a  stenographer 
and  the  morning  mail,  so  I  was  waiting — outside  in 
the  board  room.  We  were  both  supporters  of  creeds 
called  outworn  and  certainly  temporarily  neglected. 
Dewar's  mail  must  have  been  voluminous,  for  I  waited 
a  long  while.  And  meanwhile  I  felt  a  great  sympathy 
for  the  little  brown  church  in  its  long,  patient  vigil 
down  below.  Behind  me  the  market  was  just  opening, 
and  the  whir  of  the  ticker  was  unbroken.  I  heard  a 
voice  announce  that  if  steel  opened  below  sixty  illim- 
itable disaster  would  result,  and  the  clock  in  the  tower 
struck  ten.  I  felt  somehow  as  if  it  were  a  greeting  from 
old  Trinity  to  another  old  fogy. 

Presently  Dewar's  door  opened  and  his  stenographer 
appeared  with  an  armful  of  papers.  I  went  in. 

195 


PIERRE    VINTON 

The  office  was  a  small  room  and  as  bare  as  a  cell. 
There  were  three  telephones  on  a  flat-topped  desk,  a 
ticker  in  the  corner  next  to  it,  and  two  chairs,  but  not 
a  pen  or  a  pencil  or  a  scrap  of  paper  except  what  the 
stenographer  took  out  with  her  when  she  finally  left  us. 
Dewar  greeted  me  curtly  enough,  but  I  was  conscious 
immediately  that  he  was  puzzled  by  my  visit.  He  wore 
a  business  manner  which,  of  course,  he  would  never 
have  assumed  for  a  business  interview.  I  almost  ex- 
pected him  to  say:  "What  can  I  do  for  you?"  He 
stopped  barely  short  of  it.  Actually  he  made  some  com- 
ment on  the  stock-market,  letting  the  ticker  tape  run 
through  his  fingers. 

"It  is  breaking  pretty  quickly,"  he  began. 

"Yes,"  I  said.  He  seemed  absorbed  in  the  quota- 
tions until  I  was  seated. 

"Well,"  he  said  presently,  "what's  up?" 

"I  have  come  on  a  purely  personal  matter,"  I  ex- 
plained. "Will  we  be  uninterrupted?" 

"Oh,  quite.  Go  ahead.  What  is  it?" 

"  I  was  told  last  night  that  you  were  going  to  marry 
Mrs.  Vinton.  Is  it  true?" 

"Yes,"  he  answered.  "Only  we  didn't  intend  it  to 
get  out  so  soon." 

196 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Oh,  it  isn't  out,"  I  answered.  "You  see  you  can 
scarcely  describe  me  as  'out.' ' 

"Quite  so,"  he  smiled.  "But,  you  understand,  no 
further." 

"No,  certainly,  no  further  by  all  means.  In  fact," 
I  added,  "that  is  what  I  wanted  to  see  you  about — 
its  getting  this  far." 

He  drew  in  cautiously  and  turned  from  the  desk 
so  as  to  face  me.  "I  don't  quite  understand,"  he  said. 

The  constant  repetition  of  "  quite  "  made  me  nervous. 
I  thought  I  had  best  be  as  exact  as  possible.  "I  mean 
this,"  I  explained.  "I  am  going  to  prevent  its  going  any 
further,  prevent  the  marriage.  Do  you  understand?" 

He  jumped  out  of  his  chair.  "Oh,  tommy-rot,  I 
haven't  time  to  listen  to  it. " 

I  rose  too.  "It's  no  matter.  I  have  said  all  that  is 
necessary.  I  thought  it  only  fair  to  tell  you  before- 
hand." 

"Well,  I  tell  you,"  he  broke  out,  "that  if  you  are 
joking,  you  have  a  damned  queer  humor.  And  if  not 
you  are  crazy.  You  might  as  well  warn  me  of  your  in- 
tention to  drink  up  the  East  River." 

"Honestly,  Dewar,  you  behave  as  if  nobody  had 
ever  talked  to  you  seriously  before  in  your  life.  I  am 

197 


PIERRE    VINTON 

completely  sane,  only  I  am  completely  serious.  I  am  go- 
ing to  prevent  the  marriage,  and  I'll  tell  you  exactly 
by  what  means." 

"Thanks,"  he  put  in,  "that  would  be  interesting." 

"Naturally  I  have  some  influence  over  her,  and  I 
have,  if  I  care  to  use  it,  absolute  control  over  you.  We 
will  leave  her  out  of  it.  Take  your  case  first.  The  surest 
method  of  prevention  would  be  to  throw  you  through 
that  window.  That  is  where  my  control  over  you  be- 
gins. I  am  able  to  throw  you  through  it.  Next,  I  can 
threaten  to  do  it.  That  is  the  second  zone  of  influence, 
because  you  know  I  am  able  to  do  it.  The  third  step 
is  to  convince  you  that  I  am  quite  willing  to  do  it. 
That  is  what  I  have  come  here  to  do." 

Dewar  is  such  a  pitiful  little  creature.  I  had  never 
imagined  he  had  any  vanity  about  his  body,  but 
when  I  said  that  I  saw  he  had.  He  flushed  up  like  a 
little  boy,  and  his  eyes  quivered.  I  almost  felt  sorry 
for  him.  It  is  queer  that  you  can  be  at  once  quite  pre- 
pared to  break  a  man's  neck  and  yet  be  averse  to 
hurting  his  feelings. 

"I  am  not  pretending  that  I  can  frighten  you,"  I 
went  on.  "Only  I  want  you  to  understand  exactly 
what  sort  of  game  you  are  up  against.  Now,  believe 

198 


PIERRE    VINTON 

me,  man,  because  I  mean  what  I  say.  Before  Almighty 
God,  I  mean  every  word  of  it." 

He  was  not  afraid,  either.  I  liked  his  not  trying  to 
bluff  about  his  weakness,  keen  as  his  mortification  was. 

"You  seem  to  overlook  one  thing,"  he  answered 
quietly.  "There  is  such  a  thing  as  the  law." 

"Yes,"  I  answered,  "but  unfortunately  the  law  is 
only  for  punishment.  It  doesn't  prevent." 

"Don't  you  know  that  I  could  have  you  locked  up 
for  what  you  have  already  said  ?  " 

"It  is  not  impossible,"  I  agreed.  "Nevertheless,  you 
won't.  Ring  for  an  officer.  Have  me  charged  with 
threatening  to  thrash  you,  break  your  neck,  throw  you 
through  the  window,  assault,  anything  of  the  sort. 
Why,  I'll  make  you  so  ridiculous  you  couldn't  marry 
your  own  chambermaid." 

The  sneer  must  have  cut  terribly.  He  lost  all  control 
instantly,  and  with  it  he  lost  all  force  too.  He  fairly 
gibbered.  Every  minute  I  expected  an  interruption 
from  outside.  They  could  scarcely  have  failed  to  hear. 
"You  threaten  me,  do  you?"  he  bawled.  "You  can 
throw  me  out  of  a  window  ?  Well,  what  if  you  can  ?  I 
don't  scare  that  way.  And  the  law  is  impotent,  is  it? 
You  will  see  just  how  much  truth  there  is  in  that  boast. 

199 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  have  got  you  nailed  there,  for  I  am  going  to  marry  her, 
and  if  any  damned  lunatic  tries  to  interfere  I  will  be 
married  with  the  officers  of  the  law  at  the  altar-rail." 

"Don't,"  I  advised,  "Marcella  might  marry  the 
policeman.  She  certainly  would  not  marry  you." 

He  jumped  up  and  came  at  me  as  if  he  were  going 
to  commit  assault.  "Marcella,  Marcella,"  he  gibed, 
"what  right  have  you  to  call  her  Marcella?" 

What  right  had  I?  Good  God!  I  looked  at  his  face 
so  close  to  me,  at  his  twisted  lips,  and  just  then  the 
thought  flashed  in  my  mind  that  those  lips  had  kissed 
hers,  would  kiss  again  and  again — and  something  came 
between  us  and  I  struck  at  them,  as  I  would  stamp  on 
a  snake. 

I  struck  him  only  with  my  open  hand,  but  he  tripped 
backward  over  his  chair  and  went  head  over  heels 
into  the  corner.  And  he  lay  there,  where  he  had  fallen, 
perfectly  quiet. 

He  was  not  hurt.  I  do  not  believe  that  he  was  fright- 
ened, either,  but  I  do  believe  he  was  stunned  by  aston- 
ishment. It  was  probably  the  first  time  in  his  life  he 
ever  felt  a  blow.  Blows  were  things  he  had  heard  of, 
knew  existed,  of  course,  probably  had  seen,  but  cer- 
tainly believed  as  remote  from  his  world  as  Sirius. 

200 


PIERRE    VINTON 

To  be  struck  by  a  man  must  have  been  as  startling  to 
him  as  to  be  struck  by  a  meteor.  He  got  up  presently 
to  my  great  relief  and  took  out  his  handkerchief  and 
began  to  dab  at  a  little  cut  on  his  chin,  made  by  my 
glove  button.  I  felt  sorry  for  him  again  and  looked 
away  and,  happening  to  look  down  at  old  Trinity, 
felt  ashamed  of  myself. 

He  said  not  a  word  but  stood  there  looking  at  me, 
and  dabbing  at  his  chin  with  a  pocket-handkerchief. 

I  felt  like  a  fool.  It  was  a  ridiculous  situation,  and  I 
had  made  it  so.  I  had  quarrelled  with  a  man  over  a 
woman.  Truly,  an  archaic  proceeding.  Nowadays  men 
don't  quarrel  over  women,  they  quarrel  with  them. 
My  place  was  at  Babylon.  By  coming  here  I  pre- 
tended that  a  woman  was  a  piece  of  property  and  her 
possession  a  matter  of  title,  which  was  obviously  ab- 
surd, especially  so  in  this  case.  In  sober  truth  Dewar  and 
I  might  as  profitably  have  quarrelled  over  real  estate 
in  the  moon.  It  was  possible  that  finally  I  might  have 
to  fulfil  my  threats  to  the  last  syllable,  but  until  then 
the  matter  lay  between  the  woman  and  me.  And  now, 
bound  by  some  shred  of  an  ancient  code,  I  had  come 
down  here  and  made  an  ass  of  myself. 

"Well,  Dewar,"  I  said  at  length,  "I  shouldn't  have 
201 


PIERRE    VINTON 

struck  you.  I  did  not  come  here  to  do  that.  Something 
you  said  then  got  under  my  skin." 

"Yes,"  he  answered  curiously,  "I  know." 

"Of  course  I  do  not  retract  anything  I  have  said, 
but  I  am  sorry  I  struck  you.  That  was  absolutely 
useless." 

He  nodded  and  kept  on  dabbing  at  his  chin. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  shadow  of  resentment  in  him. 
Apparently  he  was  rather  shaken,  for  he  sat  down 
weakly  in  the  visitors'  chair.  But  he  never  took  his 
eyes  from  me  and  he  did  not  speak. 

"You  are  not  hurt?"  I  asked.  "That  is  only  a  little 
scratch  on  the  chin,  isn't  it?" 

He  looked  down  at  his  handkerchief,  just  flecked  with 
red,  and  replied:  "Oh,  yes,  only  a  scratch." 

As  I  had  told  him,  I  could  not  very  well  offer  to 
shake  hands,  and  I  had  nothing  to  add  and  nothing 
to  retract  from  what  I  had  said;  for  me  the  interview 
was  ended.  And  yet  I  couldn't  go.  I  distinctly  felt 
that  he  did  not  expect  me  to  go.  So  I  stood  waiting. 

Presently  he  asked  me  in  a  still  weak  voice:  "Did 
you  ever  want  to  kill  a  man?" 

"Why?" 

"Because,  I  do." 

202 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  suppose  that  is  perfectly  natural  under  the  cir- 
cumstances," I  answered  vaguely. 

"No.  It  isn't.  Not  for  me.  It's  terribly  queer  for 
me.  I  have  never  felt  anything  like  it  in  my  life.  When 
you  said  something  of  the  sort  just  now,  I  didn't  un- 
derstand. I  sincerely  thought  you  were  crazy.  Now  I 
understand,  and  I  believe  you  perfectly." 

"That  is  what  I  came  to  do,"  I  answered.  "To  make 
you  understand." 

"Well,"  he  said,  "you  have  succeeded  perfectly." 

Those  were  our  last  words.  When  I  closed  the  door 
he  was  still  sitting  in  the  chair  with  his  handkerchief 
to  his  chin. 


Ill 

I  HAVE  no  clear  recollection  of  any  plan  or  motive  in 
going  immediately  down  to  Babylon.  I  believe  that  I 
had  none.  Otherwise,  surely  I  would  have  telephoned 
and  found  out  beforehand  the  uselessness  of  the  trip. 
The  same  senseless  craving  for  action  made  me  choose 
to  go  down  by  motor  rather  than  by  train.  I  could  not 
endure,  I  felt,  the  inactivity  of  the  train.  So  I  tele- 
phoned for  a  car  from  Frizzell's,  which  met  me  at  the 
Bridge,  and  drove  down  myself.  From  the  village  I 
telephoned  to  the  Bartons'  house  and  found  that  Mar- 
cella  was  in  New  York.  The  servant  who  talked  did 
not  know  where,  and  could  not  find  out  except  that  she 
definitely  would  not  be  home  for  luncheon  and  prob- 
ably would  for  dinner. 

I  came  out  of  the  drug  store  where  the  telephone  was 
and  looked  helplessly  up  and  down  the  familiar  street. 
What  to  do  next  was  my  thought.  The  thought  was 
answered  by  the  chauffeur  in  the  car  at  the  curb,  who 
suggested  that  he  wanted  lunch.  The  homely  good 

204 


PIERRE    VINTON 

sense  of  the  want  made  me  laugh  at  my  own  self. 
What  was  my  haste?  What  had  I  to  tell  Marcella 
that  could  not  wait  ?  What  had  I  to  tell  her,  anyway  ? 
I  had  no  answer.  The  chauffeur,  thinking  I  was  laugh- 
ing at  him,  got  mad  meanwhile  and  kept  muttering 
something  about  flesh  and  blood  and  three  o'clock. 

So  I  pacified  him,  and  we  lunched  together  at  a 
delicatessen  shop  across  the  street.  He  was  a  good- 
tempered  creature  when  properly  fed  and  told  me  wild 
tales  of  parties  he  had  driven  to  and  from  on  that  same 
Long  Island  with  all  the  nastiest  details  put  in  in  a 
whisper. 

He  ate  unreasonably,  too,  and  when  we  finally  got 
away,  found  the  main  street  blocked  by  the  railroad 
gates.  Two  trains,  up  and  down,  arrived  simultaneously. 
We  were  on  the  side  of  the  up  train,  which  pulled  out 
last.  As  it  cleared  the  crossing,  it  gave  me  a  view  of  the 
opposite  platform.  I  saw  Marcella  standing  there. 
She  was  looking  about  her  as  if  she  half  expected  to 
be  met,  and  as  my  car  came  into  full  view  and  she 
saw  me,  she  started  and  turned  toward  one  of  the  ram- 
shackle cabs  gathered  about  the  place. 

I  got  out  and  went  over  to  her. 

"I  have  come  down  to  see  you,"  I  said.  "I  have 
205 


PIERRE    VINTON 

something  to  tell  you."  Even  then  I  did  not  know 
what. 

"Can  you  tell  me  here?"  she  asked. 

"No,  not  here,"  and  I  waited  while  she  scrutinized 
me. 

"Then  we  had  best  go  to  the  house.  There  is  nobody 
at  home." 

I  drove  and  Marcella  sat  alone  in  the  tonneau,  and 
sat,  I  felt,  very  straight  up,  too.  In  the  driving  seat  I 
repeated  what  I  was  going  to  tell  her. 

As  we  drove  up  to  the  gate  she  leaned  forward  and 
spoke:  "Drive  around  to  the  stables;  I  see  somebody's 
car  in  front."  So  I  turned  and  we  got  out  back  of  the 
stables.  I  caught  that  chauffeur's  narrow  eyes  watch- 
ing us,  summing  us  up  as  we  walked  off  toward  the 
garden. 

"I  have  seen  Mrs.  Axson,"  I  said. 

"Yes.  She  told  me  so  to-day." 

"Oh !  That's  where  you  were.  I  thought  so." 

"I  have  also  seen  Stewart  Dewar,"  I  went  on. 

"On — on  purpose?"  she  asked  quickly. 

I  nodded. 

She  stopped  and  made  me  face  her  there  on  the  walk 
between  two  hedges.  "What  did  you  have  to  say  to 
him?"  she  demanded. 

206 


PIERRE    VINTON, 

And  as  I  looked  at  her  there  I  thought  how  I  loved 
her,  and  how  I  must  always  love  her,  and  how  she  was 
Marcella,  my  Marcella,  my  wife,  my  sweetheart.  I 
understood  for  the  first  time  how  a  man  can  strike  a 
woman.  Something  queer  probably  showed  in  my  face, 
for  she  dropped  a  parcel  she  carried  and  laid  both 
hands  on  my  arm.  "  What  have  you  done  ?  "  she  asked. 
"Tell  me,  Pierre.  Pierre,  what  have  you  done?" 

"Done  to  him,"  I  answered,  "nothing.  But  what 
have  you  done?" 

"Done  to  him?"  she  questioned.  "What  do  you 
mean  ?  " 

"No.  To  me." 

She  dropped  her  hands  and  drew  back.  "To  you?" 
she  said.  "What  have  I  to  do  with  you?" 

There  it  was  again:  the  appeal  to  cool  reason  in  the 
futile  turmoil  of  emotions,  like  the  chauffeur's  appeal  for 
lunch;  and  again  it  sobered  me. 

"Will  you  let  me  tell  you,"  I  answered,  "what  you 
have  to  do  with  me  ?  " 

And  before  she  answered  I  picked  up  that  parcel 
and  led  the  way  to  a  board  seat  nailed  to  a  pear- 
tree — a  bench  that  was  in  the  garden,  when  I  first 
entered  it. 

207 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  can't  imagine  what  all  this  means,"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

"If  you  will  listen  I  shall  explain.  In  the  first 
place,  I  fell  in  love  with  you  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  have 
always  loved  you  ever  since." 

She  half  rose,  as  if  to  protest.  But  I  put  my  hands 
on  her  shoulders  and  pushed  her  back.  "You  have  got 
to  listen,  and,  moreover,  you  have  got  to  believe." 

She  was  a  little  frightened  and  looked  hurriedly 
about  over  that  ill-kept  old  garden  with  its  weed- 
grown  paths  and  untrimmed  trees  and  rotten  palings. 
"I  have  always  loved  you.  I  loved  you  when  you 
married  me  and  when  you  left  me,  and  I  think  I  loved 
you  more  when  you  left  me  than  when  I  married. 
But  I  let  you  go.  That  was  criminally  wrong.  I  thought 
it  was  right.  I  had  listened  to  too  much  dribble  about 
Feminists,  I  suppose.  I  believed  it  unfair  to  keep  a 
woman  to  her  bargain  against  her  will.  So  I  let  you  go." 

"I  suppose  now,"  she  broke  in,  "you  believe  it 
right  to  keep  her  to  that  bargain  against  her  will." 

"That  isn't  my  problem  any  more,"  I  said.  "I 
bitterly  regret  letting  you  go,  and  I  believe  I  did  wrong. 
I  am  as  much  as  you  and  my  needs  are  as  great.  And 
my  need  of  you  was  greater  than  your  need  of  freedom. 

208 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  sacrificed  a  greater  to  a  less.  That  is  always  wrong, 
and  between  you  and  me  it  was  such  a  wrong  I  call 
it  a  crime.  It  took  from  me  all  happiness,  and  it  has 
not  brought  you  any." 

"I  not  happy?"  she  rose.  "I  am  a  thousand  times 
» 

"If  you  were,  you  would  never  think  of  marrying 
Stewart  Dewar,"  I  interrupted. 

As  soon  as  I  spoke  I  knew  I  was  right.  Marcella  is 
not  clever  at  duplicity,  and  I  have  known  her  and 
loved  her  for  nearly  fifteen  years.  She  played  very  well. 
She  insulted  me  endlessly.  She  even  wept,  but  I  never 
doubted.  Once  she  tried  to  rush  past  me,  but  I  caught 
her  and  pushed  her  back  on  the  seat. 

"When  he  kissed  you,  you  thought  of  me  and 
blushed,"  I  told  her. 

She  twisted  about  to  face  me.  "You  are  indecent," 
she  almost  hissed. 

"Yes.  It  is  all  indecent,"  I  cried  back  at  her. 

She  seemed  a  little  quieted  by  my  heat.  "Is  that 
all  you  have  to  say  to  me?"  she  asked. 

"No;  it  is  only  the  beginning.  I  let  you  go  because 
I  believed  that  you  had  the  right  to  freedom.  I  thought 
that  our  marriage  was  a  sham  if  you  had  ceased  to 

209 


PIERRE    VINTON 

love  me.  It  seemed  to  me  that  to  bind  you  to  me  be- 
cause of  a  document  rotting  in  dust  in  a  never-opened 
vault  or  to  claim  your  life  forfeit  because  of  words 
spoken  in  the  presence  of  a  priest  was  a  degradation 
of  human  life.  I  still  believe  it — more  faithfully  now 
since  I  have  learned  how  many  other  miseries  are 
due  to  such  mildewed  paper,  or  sacrosanct  formulae." 

Marcella  was  looking  up  at  me,  standing  before,  with 
blazing  eyes.  As  I  met  their  glance  I  hesitated  and 
stopped.  I  could  not  say  to  her  what  I  meant  to  say 
that  way. 

"Well?"  she  questioned  impatiently. 

"Well,"  I  went  on,  "so  much  for  documents  and 
formulae.  But,  Marcella,  when  we  were  married,  when 
you  first  told  me  you  would — do  you  remember?  It 
wasn't  very  far  from  here — and  that  day  when  we 
drove  off  from  this  house  together  and  that  night  when 
you  slept  in  my  arms,  were  we  thinking  of  documents 
or  of  formulae?  Did  either  of  us  think  then  that  we 
owed  our  happiness  to  those  things?  They  were  al- 
ways, then  as  afterward,  trash  which  we  never  thought 
of.  Our  marriage  then  was  something  infinitely  more 
sacred  than  any  priest  and  more  binding  than  any 
document  could  make  it." 

210 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Yes.  But  then  I  loved  you,"  she  broke  in. 

"Yes.  You — you — you —  I  am  not  thinking  of  you, 
I  am  thinking  of  myself — I  have  never  ceased  to  love 
you.  What  of  that?  I  have  broken  the  ties  of  priest 
and  pieces  of  paper  easily  enough.  And  because  I  have 
done  that,  you  claim  to  believe  that  I  have  broken  all 
ties  that  held  between  us.  It  is  you  who  are  inconsis- 
tent. How  can  those  formulae  mean  nothing  in  the 
marriage  and  everything  in  the  divorce?  What  hap- 
pened to  them  to  make  them  grow  so,  and  what  hap- 
pened to  my  love  for  you  which  made  the  marriage 
binding,  that  it  had  no  part  in  the  divorce?  If  it  was 
all-important  in  one,  how  did  it  become  negligible  in 
the  second?" 

"But  you  surrendered  these  rights.  You  gave  them 
up." 

"I  did  not,"  I  answered,  "because  I  could  not. 
Before  Almighty  God,  what  made  me  your  husband 
on  our  wedding  night  is  in  my  soul  now." 

She  rose,  shaking,  a  little  frightened.  "  But  I  am  free. 
Free,"  she  repeated,  putting  out  her  hands  in  appeal. 

Never  before  in  her  whole  life  had  she  asked  me  for 
something  and  been  refused.  I  could  not  have  refused 
her  then,  only  as  she  spoke  I  thought  of  Dewar  and 

211 


PIERRE    VINTON 

those  hateful  lips  I  struck.  Then  I  knew  that  I  could 
never  give  her  this. 

"If  you  believe,"  I  answered,  "that  marriage  is  a 
formula  muttered  by  a  priest,  if  you  believe  it  is  the 
desire  of  one  meeting  the  convenience  of  the  other,  you 
are  free.  If  you  can  strip  your  womanhood  naked,  cut 
down  your  life  to  the  bare  mechanistic  principle,  you  are 
free.  But  if  you  can't,  you  must  listen  to  what  I  say." 

"And  what  you  say  is — ?  I  am  listening." 

"That  this  thing  which  happened  between  us  was 
not  of  your  doing  only,  but  partly,  also,  of  mine;  that 
you  may — I  give  you  every  right — that  you  may 
take  from  it  all  that  is  yours,  all  that  you  put  into  it, 
but  that  you  cannot  touch  my  part.  You  may  leave 
me;  I  have  not  held  you.  You  may  withhold  from  me 
every  privilege  a  wife  grants  a  husband;  I  ask  none 
of  these  from  you,  but  further  you  cannot  go.  I  ad- 
mit that  you  are  entitled  to  every  freedom  I  can  give, 
but  you  are  not  entitled  to  freedom  from  my  loving 
you,  because  I  can't  give  you  that." 

"That  means,  I  suppose,"  she  added,  "marrying 
again?  Then  I  answer  that  what  you  ask  is  not  only 
injustice,  it  is  insanity." 

"It  may  be  insanity,"  I  answered.  "Yes,  it  may  be 


PIERRE    VINTON1 

that,  but  it  is  certainly  not  injustice.  After  all,  I  only 
forbid  you  to  commit  adultery." 

She  got  up,  flaming  red.  "You  have  forgotten  that 
even  a  wife  should  not  be  insulted." 

"Would  you  blame  any  woman,"  I  asked,  "who  left 
a  marriage  when  she  found  she  had  been  deceived, 
and  that  her  husband's  love  was  a  lie.  Wouldn't  you 
say  that  such  a  marriage  was  a  sham  and  bound  no 
more  than  the  law,  which  could  be  abrogated,  bound  ? 
Then  why  is  not  divorce  similarly  effective  ?  Both  are 
mere  matters  of  formulae,  depending  for  their  human 
validity  on  human  love.  If  I  cannot  be  truly  married 
to  you  without  love,  I  cannot  be  divorced  from  you 
with  it." 

"I  think  I  am  going  a  little  mad,"  she  said.  "I  can't 
believe  that  you  are  speaking  what  I  seem  to  hear." 
She  laid  her  palms  against  her  cheeks  and  turned  away 
from  me  to  look  across  the  marshes  toward  the  distant 
blue  glimmer  of  the  sea.  "Yes.  I  think  I  am  a  little 
mad,  too." 

"No,  my  dear,  not  mad,  only  beginning  to  under- 
stand," I  said  to  myself,  and  I  sat  down  and  began  to 
smoke,  watching  her  standing  still  at  the  tree  trunk, 
looking  out  into  the  distance. 

213 


PIERRE    VINTON 

What  a  kaleidoscope  life  is!  Here  were  Marcella 
and  I  in  that  old  weed-grown  garden  at  Babylon, 
where  she  and  I  had  loved  so.  What  an  infinite  number 
of  shapes  and  colors  life  had  formed  since  then!  And 
now,  back  again,  the  same  garden  and  Marcella  and  I, 
and  I  pleading  with  her  not  to  strike  me  the  foulest 
blow  a  woman  can  give  a  man.  I  know  well  of  what 
she  was  thinking  while  she  stood  so  silent.  She  was 
trying,  just  as  I  had  tried,  to  scare  away  the  memories, 
to  strip  her  girlhood  to  its  skeleton,  to  get  life  down, 
as  I  had  told  her,  to  the  mechanistic  principle.  And  she 
was  going  to  fail,  as  I  had  failed,  as  everybody,  per- 
haps, fails  once  or  twice  in  a  lifetime. 

She  turned  then  and  looked  at  me. 

"So  you  love  me?"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  I  answered. 

"You  must  believe  this,  then,"  she  went  on;  "I  have 
ceased  to  love  you.  At  first,  for  a  little  while,  I  missed 
you,  thought  of  you  at  least  frequently,  wanted  you, 
perhaps,  sometimes.  Now  I  don't  do  that.  You  are  a 
part  of  my  life  that  is  dead;  quite  dead  forever.  Do 
you  believe  me?" 

"Yes,"  I  answered. 

"Does  it  make  any  difference?"  she  asked. 
214 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"No.  If  there  is  ever  any  difference,  I  shall  tell 
you?" 

"Yes.  I  believe  that  you  will,"  she  said.  "And  you 
must  believe  this:  I  don't  love  you,  but  I  believe  in 
your  love  for  me.  I  don't  deserve  it,  I  don't  even  want 
it.  But  I  value  it,  and  I  don't  think  I  could  ever  do 
anything  to  hurt  it.  I  didn't  think  anything  of  this 
sort  when  you  came  in  here.  But  you  know  it  now.  I 
can  never  hurt  it.  It  is  like  a  little  child,  I  can  never 
hurt  it." 

"That  is  what  I  meant,  Marcella,"  I  said. 

"Is  it?  I  don't  know.  Only  I  can't  hurt  it." 

We  stood  looking  at  each  other  so  for  a  moment. 
She  put  out  her  hand.  "Good-by." 

Then  suddenly  she  put  both  hands  against  the 
rough  bark  of  the  pear-tree  and  leaned  her  face  against 
them.  I  saw  the  tears  creep  through  her  fingers. 

I  did  not  wait.  I  knew  she  would  not  want  me  to  see 
her  cry.  I  went  away  then. 

The  chauffeur  was  asleep  in  the  car  when  I  got  there. 
He  had  been  asleep  all  the  time.  I  awoke  him  and 
drove  slowly  back  to  New  York. 


215 


IV 

I  SUPPOSE  men  will  always  change  their  skies  in 
search  of  new  thoughts — as  I  did  now.  In  truth,  at 
that  time  my  thoughts  needed  a  change  pretty  badly, 
for,  as  I  lay  sleepless  through  that  night  after  my  trip 
to  Babylon,  they  became  rather  desperate  and  de- 
spairing. The  situation  was  so  obviously  impossible 
as  it  stood,  and  as  I  had  brought  it  there  it  was  quite 
as  obviously  my  part  to  find  a  solution.  That  was  not 
very  hard  to  find — the  elimination  of  Pierre  Vinton  at 
once  from  all  earthly  situations  forever. 

That  is  a  very  radical  conclusion  for  a  man  under 
any  circumstances  to  be  brought  to,  and  besides  fright- 
ening me  badly  it  shocked  me,  too.  I  do  not  believe  in 
radicalism.  Life,  if  properly  treated,  will  generally 
yield  to  compromise.  I  had  no  instinct  for  the  Wer- 
therian  heroics.  Such  heroes,  besides  everything  else, 
it  seems  to  me,  generally  in  the  end  turn  out  to  be 
silly.  I  can  excuse  a  man's  self-extinction  only  in  case 
of  an  utter  exhaustion  of  the  will  after  a  long  struggle 

216 


PIERRE    VINTON 

or  else  extreme  ennui.  Neither  was  my  condition.  In- 
deed, my  will  had  never  been  so  intensely  excited  and 
I  was  further  from  ennui  than  at  any  time  in  several 
years.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  how  else  could  I  relieve 
a  woman  of  the  burden  of  my  continued  existence,  inas- 
much as  I  had  deliberately  fastened  it  like  a  pack  upon 
her  shoulders?  I  lay  for  hours  in  the  dark  with  that 
problem  for  my  company,  and  for  once,  at  any  rate,  I 
could  find  no  compromise  to  fit  it. 

At  length,  just  as  the  morning  was  showing  gray 
about  the  windows,  the  hope  came  that  if  I  got  away 
I  might  get  a  different  angle  of  vision.  It  is  a  confused 
reason  but  a  very  ancient  faith.  I  went  down  in  the 
dim  light  to  the  library,  where  yesterday's  newspapers 
still  littered  the  floor,  and  finding  that  the  Kronprin- 
zessin  Cecilie  sailed  that  evening  at  nine  o'clock  for 
Cherbourg  and  Bremen,  I  decided  to  sail  on  board  her. 

There  were  a  great  many  affairs  of  detail  that  might 
have  delayed  me  if  I  had  not  thought  of  handing  over 
all  of  them  into  the  hands  of  Courtland  Brown.  The 
simple  matter  of  an  attorneyship,  and  I  was  free  of 
mundane  worry,  and  Courtland  Brown  equipped  once 
more  to  take  a  fall  out  of  the  world.  I  prided  myself 
greatly  on  this  master-stroke  of  rehabilitation.  Courty's 

217 


PIERRE    VINTON 

comment  was  that  it  seemed  to  be  a  pretty  large  order. 
He  needed  a  large  order;  anything  else  would  have 
been  a  temptation,  as  I  explained  to  him.  So  I  left  him 
shackled  to  good  behavior  more  securely  than  a  convict. 

He  drove  to  the  dock  with  me,  he  and  Habliston.  I 
saw  them  last  under  one  of  the  big  arc-lights  of  the 
pier,  looking  for  me  along  the  steamer's  rail.  When 
Brown  caught  sight  of  me,  he  raised  one  clinched  fist 
above  his  head  and  shook  it  in  the  ah-.  I  found  a  note 
from  Habliston  saying  that  there  were  woollen  under- 
clothes at  the  bottom  of  a  leather  trunk.  I  left  two 
good  things  behind  me — a  good  servant  and  a  good 
friend. 

On  landing  at  Cherbourg  I  went  directly  to  Paris, 
for  the  reason  that  every  one  from  the  boat  did  so. 
There  was  no  one  on  board  whom  I  knew,  and  I  had 
made  no  acquaintances,  but  I  had  formed  the  habit 
of  seeing  these  faces,  and  to  lose  sight  of  them  would 
have  been  a  useless  jar.  So  they  melted  away  imper- 
ceptibly until  I  took  formal  leave  of  the  last  one,  a 
fat  little  haberdasher  from  Denver,  and  left  him  stand- 
ing speechless  on  a  Paris  sidewalk,  one  of  the  loneliest 
figures  I  have  ever  seen. 

Phillipe  I  believed  to  be  in  Normandy,  but  I  fancied 
218 


PIERRE    VINTON 

he  might  return  unexpectedly  and  I  did  not  wish  to 
go  anywhere  I  might  meet  him.  He  is  one  of  those 
clear-thinking  souls,  so  offensive  to  the  melancholy. 
So  are  all  Frenchmen.  So  especially  is  Paris.  The 
melancholy  love  vagueness,  shadows,  mists,  semi- 
obscurity.  Paris  does  not  know  such  things.  It  is  her 
mission  to  bring  light  into  the  world.  I  have  never 
cared  for  Paris  at  any  time,  but  I  loathed  the  city 
then.  The  only  melancholy  that  French  can  tolerate 
is  that  of  reflection.  The  melancholy  of  emotion  is 
incomprehensible  to  them.  To  think  life  is  a  poor  farce 
is  the  r61e  of  a  philosopher,  but  not  to  laugh  at  it  is 
an  inexcusable  b£tise.  It  is  a  very  gallant  philosophy, 
y  too,  but  I  was  not.  in  the  humor  for  it  at  the  time. 

It  was  during  these  days  that  I  learned  the  differ- 
ence between  the  loneliness  of  solitude,  which  is  fear, 
and  the  loneliness  of  the  multitude,  which  is  despair. 
At  night  I  felt  one,  and  all  the  day  the  other.  I  stayed 
at  a  little  gray  hotel  in  the  Rue  Castiglione,  where  I 
knew  no  one,  and  spent  my  time  in  art  galleries,  mu- 
seums, theatres,  restaurants.  I  frequently  saw  familiar 
faces  and  I  always  avoided  them.  However  American- 
ized Paris  may  have  become,  still  no  particular  Amer- 
ican is  expected,  and  when  he  is  seen  there  is  always 

219 


PIERRE    VINTON 

an  incredulous  moment  when  he  may,  if  he  wishes,  make 
an  escape.  I  used  innumerable  moments  so.  I  had  a 
curious  dislike  of  hearing  of  New  York.  I  felt  it  was  a 
complete  disassociation  of  ideas  I  needed,  and  in  the 
crowds  I  diligently  preserved  my  solitude. 

I  sought  earnestly  for  the  new  angle  of  view  I  had 
come  away  to  find.  I  did  not  find  it.  Once,  however,  I 
imagined  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  it.  It  was  at  Enghien, 
whither  I  had  gone  for  dinner.  Afterward  I  went  into 
the  baccarat  rooms.  It  was  not  exciting.  Gambling 
sometimes  is  when  it  is  a  passion,  but  it  is  generally 
disgusting  as  a  pastime.  Some  men  worship  the  great 
goddess  Chance  and  observe  scrupulously  every  de- 
tail of  her  rituals — black  cats,  bent  pins,  Fridays,  lucky 
numbers,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  I  respect  such  devout 
souls,  but  who  can  respect  the  devotion  of  a  partner 
at  a  whist  table?  There  were  no  devout  souls  at  the 
tables.  Every  one  was  playing  listlessly  and  stingily. 
I  found  a  seat  at  a  table  of  Chemin  de  Fer,  and  for  a 
time  played  as  listlessly  and  stingily  as  any  of  them, 
winning  for  the  most  part,  and  at  last  in  disgust  threw 
down  the  handful  of  gold  pieces  I  had  slowly  accumu- 
lated and  played  the  whole  on  my  own  hand.  I  won. 
The  table  grew  a  little  more  animated  when  I  played 

220 


PIERRE    VINTON 

the  double  amount  on  the  second  hand.  When  I  staked 
that  also  and  won  I  became  a  hero,  an  unsuspected 
favorite  of  the  goddess.  Sparks  of  the  true  gaming 
spirit  flashed  about.  There  was  approximately  fifteen 
hundred  francs  in  front  of  me.  I  played  it  and  won; 
played  and  won  again.  I  risked  the  whole,  something 
more  than  a  thousand  dollars,  and  lost.  But  the  table 
had  lost  courage  by  then  probably,  for  the  croupier 
pushed  over  to  me  a  double  handful  of  gold. 

As  I  took  the  money  I  heard  my  left-hand  neighbor 
murmur  in  French:  "A  run  of  six.  My  God !" 

She  was  a  glorious,  full-lipped,  deep-bosomed  woman, 
and  I  imagine  she  had  never  looked  better  than  at  that 
moment,  for,  evidently  a  novice  at  gambling,  she  was 
thrilled  by  the  fascination  of  it.  She  had  splendid  big 
brown  eyes,  all  afire  now,  and  her  lips  just  parted 
showed  the  gleam  of  her  teeth  and  the  tiny  tip  of  her 
tongue.  She  smiled  frankly  back  when  I  caught  her 
glance  and  said,  pointing  to  a  gold  piece:  "That  is 
mine.  I  scratched  it  for  good  luck." 

I  told  her  in  that  case  I  should  keep  it. 

She  said  politely  that  I  was  very  kind  and  added: 
"And  it  was  my  last  one,  too."  Then  she  glanced  sadly 
across  to  where  the  cards  were. 

221 


PIERRE    VINTON 

So  I  understood  that  just  for  the  gold  I  had  in  my 
hand  she  was  mine.  That  was  the  new  angle.  I  had  only 
to  throw  the  money  in  her  lap  and  tell  her  to  follow 
me,  and  I  was  thenceforth  a  burden  upon  no  woman  in 
the  world.  The  necessity  that  bound  me  was  snapped 
like  sewing  thread. 

The  idea  was  not  new,  but  it  had  a  new  force  now; 
the  beauty  of  the  woman.  She  was  beautiful,  and  I 
was  bored.  She  was  poor,  and  I  was  rich.  Surely  there 
were  many  compromises  to  be  made  with  life  of  those 
four  elements.  In  the  end  I  decided  there  were,  and  I 
gave  her  the  money  and  went  back  to  Paris  alone. 
There  was  no  reason  in  this,  and  there  was  no  morality, 
either.  Perhaps  there  was  only  obstinacy. 

In  the  end  this  little  adventure  led  me  away  from 
Paris.  After  it  I  saw  the  counterpart  of  that  woman 
everywhere.  She  became  for  me  the  visible  expression 
of  all  that  Paris  had  left  to  offer  me  since  I  had  refused 
her  true  great  gift.  First  a  philosophy  I  had  no  taste 
for,  then  a  woman  I  did  not  wish  to  buy:  I  felt  that 
Paris  had  behaved  stingily  toward  me. 

Disgusted  with  Paris,  I  despaired  of  all  cities  and 
went  to  Vevey.  One  year,  many  years  ago,  I  went  to 
school  at  Vevey,  and  I  had  always  remembered  a 

222 


PIERRE    VINTON 

certain  schoolmaster  with  reverence.  Perhaps — but  my 
master  was  dead,  and  even  the  desks  were  new.  They 
showed  me  his  tomb.  Perhaps  the  living  man  would 
have  been  as  inarticulate  to  my  needs  as  the  stone  that 
covered  him.  Still,  I  remembered  him  as  an  unceasing 
spring  of  knowledge,  and  I  went  away  like  a  man  who 
has  barely  failed  to  grasp  some  longed-for  prize. 

Switzerland  is  an  incomparable  place  to  be  alone  in. 
After  Paris,  I  appreciated  it.  I  rested  there  and  spent 
more  than  a  week  idling  about  on  the  shores  of  the  lake 
around  Vevey.  Later,  at  Lucerne,  the  Nemesis  of  the 
post  overtook  me  and  I  found  the  accumulated  mail. 
I  read  the  first  two  letters,  glanced  at  a  few  more,  and 
then,  being  on  the  bridge,  I  heaved  the  whole  parcel 
of  letters  overboard  into  the  lake.  As  they  fell  they 
attracted  an  innumerable  flock  of  ducks  waiting  below 
for  bread,  who  fell  on  them  and  then  scattered  in  all 
directions.  One  large  black  pirate  I  saw  sailing  off, 
bearing  in  his  beak  an  envelope  I  recognized  as  Lilly 
Axson's  with  an  air  of  inexpressible  triumph. 

How  I  disliked  a  postage  stamp !  To  me  the  marvels 
of  the  post  were  the  tentacles  of  a  gigantic  octopus  in 
whose  clutches  I  struggled  vainly  for  release.  Now,  a 
glance  at  a  letter  had  brought  back  to  me  New  York 

223 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  the  realization  that  in  all  essential  ways  I  was 
precisely  where  I  had  started.  It  was  a  beautiful  spring 
day.  Under  my  feet  were  the  sparkling  waters  of  the 
lake,  above  me  the  glittering  summits  of  the  Alps. 

I  have  no  reason  to  believe  that  I  am  more  life- 
loving  than  the  common  run  of  men,  but  I  have  never 
committed  the  stupidity  of  despising  it.  I  wished  to 
lay  aside  my  garment  of  the  years  decently  and  with 
respect,  not  tear  it  loose  like  a  boy  at  bedtime.  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  mails.  They  could  neither  help  me 
nor  hinder  me.  The  high,  white  summits  met  more  the 
needs  of  my  spirit.  I  threw  the  letters  to  the  ducks 
and  went  up  into  the  mountains. 

That  night,  looking  out  from  a  window  in  Engle- 
berg,  I  saw  the  moon  shining  down  on  the  great  white 
head  of  Titlis. 

It  is  a  benign  and  venerable  summit.  As  I  looked  up 
to  it  I  felt  suddenly  the  desire  to  climb  up  to  it,  too. 
It  was  a  desire  easily  enough  fulfilled.  Next  morning, 
by  inquiries  at  the  office,  I  found  that  two  parties  were 
starting  that  afternoon  for  the  summit  and  I  decided 
to  go  with  them.  The  clerk  at  first  was  very  insistent 
that  I  take  a  guide,  and  he  spoke  a  great  deal  of  bad 
English  anent  the  dangers  to  the  inexperienced.  But  I 

JttM 


PIERRE    VINTON 

especially  did  not  wish  a  guide.  I  wished,  above  all 
things,  to  be  alone,  and  even  if  there  should  be  an  ac- 
cident, what  of  it?  Accident  might  be  well  met.  To 
the  clerk  I  pointed  out  a  family  party — a  German 
father  and  two  daughters — starting  out  alone,  and  as 
one  of  the  daughters  was  certainly  not  over  fifteen,  he 
gave  it  up  and  let  me  pay  my  bill  in  peace.  I  started, 
therefore,  on  the  next  afternoon  with  only  a  boy  from 
the  hotel  to  show  me  the  way  across  the  meadows  to 
the  foot  of  the  tortuous  path  up  the  preliminary  climb. 
The  family  party  had  started  an  hour  before  and  was 
already  out  of  sight;  just  ahead  of  me  was  a  huge 
Englishman,  with  a  black-bearded  German  guide.  The 
Englishman  had  been  pointed  out  to  me  as  Lord 
Bathurst  Kerr,  a  famous  cragsman,  now  bound  across 
country  for  Interlaken,  and  the  Jungfrau.  I  followed 
this  couple  up  the  interminable  zigzags  in  a  fine  mist 
that  soaked  me  to  the  skin.  All  of  us  slept  that  night  at 
the  little  Tribsee  Inn,  wrapped  in  mist  and  rain — the 
Englishman,  the  German  family  party,  and  a  solitary 
German,  who  had  come  from  some  hinterland,  in  a 
pair  of  long-toed  patent-leather  dancing  shoes. 

It  was  clear  next  morning,  however,  and  I  set  out 
under  a  pale-gray  sky  with  just  enough  light  to  make 

225 


PIERRE    VINTON, 

lanterns  unnecessary.  The  Englishman  was  ahead  as 
before,  but  the  Germans,  who  had  lingered  over  break- 
fast, I  had  this  time  behind  me.  It  was  a  very  easy 
climb  even  for  such  a  green  hand  as  myself,  and  I 
would  have  enjoyed  it  if  I  had  not  looked  back  and 
seen  that  the  Germans — for  he  of  the  dancing  shoes  had 
joined  the  family  party — were  rapidly  gaining  on  me. 
There  was  something  mortifying  about  being  over- 
taken by  two  schoolgirls  and  a  man  who  wore  such 
shoes  on  the  Alps,  and  I  changed  the  leisurely  climb 
into  a  race.  The  older  daughter,  who  had  red  hair, 
for  some  reason  took  off  her  hat  as  soon  as  we  reached 
the  snow,  and  this  shining  oriflamme  drove  me  up  and 
on  at  a  killing  pace.  I  won.  I  think  I  even  gained  a  little 
on  them,  but  as  I  was  in  very  bad  shape  to  begin  with, 
this  exertion  in  the  thin  air  did  me  up  pretty  badly. 
When  I  got  to  the  top  I  was  thoroughly  beat. 

The  big  Englishman,  who  was  sitting  on  the  snow 
munching  a  roll,  looked  me  over  slowly  as  I  sat  down, 
and  without  speaking  tossed  me  a  brandy  flask.  I 
declined  with  thanks  and  tossed  it  back.  He  put  it 
in  his  pocket  without  a  word  and  went  on  with  his 
breakfast.  The  silence  of  his  much-loved  solitudes  had 
got  into  that  man's  soul.  The  Germans  trooped  past 


PIERRE    VINTON 

us  and  settled  themselves  on  the  farthest  corner  of 
the  tiny  plateau.  The  Briton  never  lifted  his  eyes  from 
his  bread,  and  we  representatives  of  three  nations  sat, 
each  in  a  different  corner,  and  exchanged  not  a  word 
among  us.  The  Germans  talked  a  little  among  them- 
selves, the  Englishman  spoke  rarely  and  in  monosyl- 
lables to  his  servant.  I  lay  on  a  rubber  coat  and  talked 
to  myself.  In  the  great  depths  some  strange  black  birds 
circled  slowly  and  silently  around.  As  I  lay  there,  feel- 
ing as  if  I  were  in  an  island  above  a  stormy  sea  of 
crags  and  snow,  I  wondered  less  and  less  at  the  English- 
man's habit  of  silence. 

He  was  the  first  to  move.  As  he  stood  up  and  fastened 
the  knapsack  across  his  tremendous  shoulders,  bent 
as  if  muscle-bound,  he  asked  me  which  descent  I  in- 
tended to  make.  I  told  him  I  was  bound  for  the  Engstlen 
Alp. 

"I  pass  it,"  he  said.  "Some  bad  spots.  Keep  me  in 
sight." 

I  thanked  him  and  said  I  would,  and  I  watched  him 
go  swinging  down  the  snow  slope,  handling  his  big 
stick  as  rhythmically  as  a  drum-major.  When  he  was  a 
few  hundred  feet  below  I  started  to  follow. 

The  descent  was  easy,  and,  relieved  of  my  pursuers, 
227 


PIERRE    VINTON 

I  took  my  ease.  Half  the  time  the  couple  below  me  were 
hidden  from  my  sight,  and  my  solitude  was  complete. 
It  was  a  boundless  panorama,  constantly  spread  below 
my  eyes — a  vast  white,  glistening  emptiness.  Such  soli- 
tudes either  break  men's  spirits  or  mend  them.  It 
mended  mine.  The  little  street-bred  stock-broker  had 
glimpses  of  higher  things.  I  began  to  descend  more 
quickly.  Only  when  two  black  spots  below  reappeared 
and  seemed  too  near,  I  stopped  altogether,  and  let  them 
draw  ahead  and  get  out  of  sight  again.  At  the  bad 
spots  I  increased  my  speed,  but  there  was  no  deliberate 
purpose  in  my  mind,  only  an  invitation,  as  it  were,  to 
the  whim  of  chance.  It  seemed  to  me  such  a  splendid 
opportunity  for  chance. 

At  length  the  unbroken  snow  my  path  had  followed 
from  the  summit  came  to  an  end.  The  trail  of  my  guides 
turned  at  right  angles  and  crossed  a  ledge  of  rock,  led 
to  another  snow  slope  beyond.  This  ledge  was  about  a 
foot  and  a  half  wide,  and  fifty  feet  or  more  in  length. 
Crossing  it  was  like  walking  on  the  top  of  a  stone  wall, 
an  old  stone  wall  of  crumbling  mortar  and  loose  stones. 
On  the  left  was  a  drop  of  a  hundred  feet  or  less  to  snow. 
On  the  right  the  fall  was  sheer  for  a  thousand  feet.  As 
I  stepped  onto  it  I  knew  I  had  found  what  I  had  come 

MS 


PIERRE    VINTON 

to  find.  That  little  platform  of  rock  was  the  "ultimate 
island  of  my  destiny." 

I  stepped  out  quickly.  A  pebble  slipped  beneath  my 
foot.  It  had  to  be  an  accident,  or  it  had  best  not  be 
at  all.  Then  a  wild  uprush  of  chaos,  a  sudden  stab  of 
pain.  And  that  was  all. 


829 


COURTLAND  BROWN  had  been  left  in  New  York 
with  authority  to  do  as  he  thought  fit  with  his  trust, 
and  advised  not  to  expect  any  communications  of 
any  sort.  He  received  none  until  the  cablegram  from 
Bathurst  Kerr.  This  was  directed  to  the  firm  of  Vinton, 
Bragg,  and  Goadby,  and  contained  a  succinct  account 
of  the  accident  on  Titlis.  A  man  carrying  in  his  knap- 
sack the  papers  of  Pierre  Vinton  had  met  with  the 
accident  and  was  lying  at  the  Engstlen  Alp  with  a 
fractured  skull  and  other  injuries  in  a  very  critical 
condition.  The  writer  was  awaiting  instructions  care 
Thomas  Cook  at  Interlaken.  It  was  signed  Bathurst 
Kerr.  Goadby  received  it  and  telephoned  Brown, 
who  came  to  the  office.  Together  they  sent  a  reply, 
promising  fuller  instructions  to  follow  immediately. 
Then  Brown  put  the  cable  in  his  pocket  and  took  it  to 
Babylon. 

It  was  early  when  he  got  there,  and  Marcella,  who 
230 


PIERRE    VINTON 

had  not  been  well,  was  still  in  bed.  The  colonel  was  on 
the  lawn  superintending  the  transplanting  of  a  tree 
when  Brown  drove  up  from  the  station.  He  knew 
Brown  vaguely. 

"You  can't  see  her,"  he  said  when  Brown  asked  for 
Marcella.  "She's  ill" 

"I've  got  to  see  her.  Vinton's  dying!"  said  Brown. 

"Dying!"  said  the  colonel. 

Brown  gave  him  the  cablegram. 

The  old  gentleman  read  it  and  started  indoors  with 
the  paper  in  his  hand. 

"For  God's  sake,  man,  don't  give  it  to  her  like  that. " 

He  sat  down  helplessly  on  the  steps.  He  still  held 
the  spade  in  his  left  hand.  "You  take  it  to  her.  I'm 
beat.  I  liked  that  boy." 

They  finally  sent  for  Marcella  by  a  maid.  But  the 
woman,  after  the  mysterious  manner  of  servants,  had 
caught  the  spirit  of  the  crisis  and  her  message  brought 
Marcella  in  a  dressing-gown  to  the  stair  top.  When 
she  caught  sight  of  Brown,  she  called  to  him  and  he 
came  up-stairs  into  the  sitting-room.  Marcella  closed 
the  door  and  stood  with  her  back  to  it. 

"Well,  what  is  it?" 

"It's  Vinton,"  said  Brown. 
231 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Of  course.  But  what  of  him?  What's  happened?'* 

Brown  handed  her  the  cable. 

She  read  it  for  a  long  time,  said  nothing,  stood  look- 
ing at  it  as  if  she  were  reading  it  and  rereading  it, 
again  and  again. 

Suddenly  she  put  out  both  hands  toward  him. 
Brown  had  always  hated  her.  He  stepped  back. 

"What  was  he  doing  on  that  mountain  alone?"  she 
asked. 

"God  knows,"  said  Brown. 

"Yes,"  said  Marcella,  "God  knows,  and  me." 

She  put  out  her  hands  to  him  again.  "Help  me,"  she 
prayed.  "He  helped  you.  Help  me  to  get  to  him." 

He  did  help  her  wonderfully,  and  only  four  hours 
later  he  bade  her  good-by  at  a  gang-plank  of  the  French 
Line.  All  the  way  in  from  Long  Island  in  the  motor 
she  had  not  said  one  word,  and  her  eyes  had  been  very 
dry.  She  knew  he  hated  her  and  why.  But  she  had 
imagined  he  was  going  with  her,  and  when  he  started 
overboard  for  the  pier,  she  broke  down.  He  caught 
her  in  his  arms,  and  the  colonel  and  he  carried  her 
to  a  chair.  She  lifted  her  veil  then,  and  he  saw  how 
her  face  had  changed,  and  his  heart  changed  at  the 
sight. 

232 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Tell  me,"  she  asked  him  then,  "when  he  left  you, 
did  he  hate  me,  too?" 

"Marcella,"  he  answered,  "I  know  that  if  his  eyes 
are  open  when  you  get  to  him  he  will  live." 

This  much  I  can  piece  together  from  Brown's  letter 
and  her. 

There  was  a  little  English  clergyman  on  the  Tou- 
raine  that  voyage  coming  home  from  the  Canadian 
Northwest.  Before  that  he  had  been  a  tutor  to  two  boys 
in  Switzerland.  He  must  have  been  a  clergyman  of  the 
simple-thinking,  clean-lived  sort  that  we  like  best  to  call 
"parson,"  and  he  was  drawn  to  Marcella  by  the  curious 
instinct  his  sort  possess  in  all  genuine  sorrow.  He  knew, 
apparently,  every  peak  in  Switzerland;  knew  Titlis 
well;  had  climbed  it  twice.  There  was  no  spot  on  it,  he 
told  her,  where  an  able-bodied  man  could  come  to 
harm.  To  prove  his  statement  he  described  a  part  of 
the  climb.  It  must  have  been  an  accident  of  an  un- 
usual kind,  he  thought,  incomprehensible  to  him. 
Marcella,  lying  in  her  chair,  listened  and  said  nothing. 

At  last,  because  it  had  grown  unbearably  compre- 
hensible to  her,  she  told  him  the  whole  story  and  what 
she  feared,  and  he,  in  hot  remorse  for  what  he  had 
done,  but  unable  to  retract  a  word,  refused  to  leave  her 

233 


PIERRE    VINTON 

and  turned  his  back  on  England,  after  ten  years'  exile, 
so  that  he  might  hand  her  over  safely  to  Bathurst 
Kerr  on  the  platform  at  Interlaken. 

Those  two  Englishmen  who  shook  hands  on  that 
platform  were  right  worthy  of  their  race.  Kerr  had 
been  told  by  cable  that  Mrs.  Vinton  would  sail  at  once 
and  he  had  waited  for  her.  Practically  by  force  he  had 
brought  the  German  doctor  from  Interlaken  out  to 
Engstlen  Alp  and  kept  him  there.  By  an  odd  chance 
one  of  the  guests  at  the  little  hotel  was  Miss  Civilese 
Springer,  of  Dayton,  O.,  U.  S.  A.,  a  graduate  of  the 
Training  School  for  Nurses  at  the  University  of  Chicago. 
Haussmann,  of  Geneva,  had  been  telegraphed  for  and 
had  arrived  the  day  before.  He  was  to  stay  until  the 
necessity  of  an  operation  was  decided  definitely  one 
way  or  the  other,  for  there  was  an  abscess  on  the 
brain  and  meningitis.  Kerr  detailed  all  this  to  Marcella 
between  Interlaken  and  Engstlen,  and  also  how  he  had 
happened  to  see  the  fall,  and  with  his  servant  had 
carried  the  stranger  on  a  litter  made  of  a  Loden  mantle, 
slung  between  two  alpenstocks  from  the  foot  of  the 
glacier,  whither  the  lifeless  body  had  rolled,  to  the  inn. 

It  was  this  same  Bathurst  Kerr  who  put  his  huge 
arm  about  her  when  she  stood  at  the  foot  of  a  wooden 


PIERRE    VINTON 

bed  and  looked  down  at  a  bandage-swathed,  unrecog- 
nizable thing  that  gibbered  and  shrieked  at  the  sight 
of  her.  He  wanted  to  lead  her  away  after  that,  but  she 
sent  him  away  instead,  and  the  nurse,  too,  and,  alone, 
she  knelt  down  by  that  bed  and  took  the  poor,  battered, 
senseless  thing  in  her  arms. 


235 


VI 

MlSS  CIVILESE  SPRINGER  is  a  duly  graduated 
nurse,  but  at  Engstlen  Alp  she  was  without  the  para- 
phernalia of  her  profession.  She  had  no  uniforms,  no 
glasses,  no  sponges;  she  did  not  have  even  a  ther- 
mometer at  first,  but  had  to  order  one  from  Geneva. 
Among  the  things  she  thus  lacked  were  charts,  and  she 
tried  to  fill  their  place  by  a  diary.  Miss  Springer  is  by 
no  means  an  instinctive  diarist,  but,  nevertheless,  a 
good  many  matters  are  in  that  diary  that  would  cer- 
tainly not  find  a  place  on  an  official  chart. 

She  has  showed  me  this  diary.  It  is  very  interesting, 
and  at  times  very  embarrassing,  too.  On  the  whole,  it 
is  the  most  personal  document  I  have  ever  inspired. 
It  is  interesting  to  read  what  the  great  Haussmann 
thought  of  me  and  did  to  me.  He  looks  like  a  fat,  black- 
bearded  Russian,  the  diary  says.  And  he  thought  very 
badly  of  me,  indeed.  On  the  night  of  his  arrival,  which 
was  the  second  before  the  night  of  Marcella's,  he 

236 


PIERRE    VINTON 

wouldn't  have  anything  to  do  with  me  at  all.  The  next 
day  he  thought  a  little  better  of  it.  Then  Marcella 
came.  The  diary  reads  here:  "And  now  the  wife  has 
come!"  with  a  huge  exclamation  point.  Then  Hauss- 
mann  operated.  Miss  Springer  was  greatly  interested  ap- 
parently in  seeing  the  maltre  in  action.  "  What  luck ! " 
says  the  diary.  "It  was  wonderful,"  she  writes  later; 
"Gushing  cannot  be  more  wonderful."  Who  is  Gush- 
ing? I  was  ashamed  to  display  my  ignorance  to  Miss 
Springer.  When  the  great  man  went  away  he  left  an 
assistant,  Doctor  Lebon.  She  describes  him  as  dirty. 
"A  duly  Frenchman,"  the  diary  reads.  There  was 
also  a  nurse,  Sceur  Agathe.  Miss  Springer  has  a  very 
high  standard  of  personal  cleanliness,  for  Sister  Agathe 
also  was  "dirty."  All  this  was  intensely  interesting  to 
him  who  had  felt  it  all  and  known  nothing  about  it. 
This  was  the  way  the  world  wagged  without  the  help 
of  his  consciousness. 

But  the  most  interesting  entry  was  that  which  de- 
scribed a  little  lapse  into  semiconsciousness  of  the 
patient  in  the  fourth  week  of  his  illness.  The  patient 
suddenly  gave  unmistakable  evidences  of  consciousness. 
He  even  made  a  sign  that  he  was  thirsty.  "His  wife," 
the  record  says,  "who  was  seated  at  the  bedside,  bent 

237 


PIERRE    VINTON 

over  him,  spoke  to  him,  called  'his  name.  He  looked 
at  her  intently  for  several  moments.  Then,  without 
recognition,  he  closed  his  eyes  and  apparently  slept. 
Later,  delirium." 

It  was  very  curious.  When  I  read  that  I  remembered 
the  occurrence  perfectly.  I  had  never  forgot  it.  Only  I 
had  never  before  known  that  the  gaunt,  white,  hollow- 
eyed  woman  standing  there  was  Marcella. 

The  second  return  was  very  different.  I  had  lain  for 
hours,  forever,  it  seemed  to  me,  conscious  of  a  beam 
above  my  head.  (The  rooms  at  the  Engstlen  are  un- 
papered.)  Suddenly  the  beam  enlarged  into  a  roof,  the 
roof  into  a  house,  into  the  world,  into  life.  That  was 
the  way  I  came  back. 

Curiously,  my  mind  instantly  returned  to  the  minute 
when  I  stood  at  the  mantel  in  Mrs.  Axson's  apart- 
ment and  she  told  me  to  get  my  hat  and  take  a  walk. 
Indeed,  it  was  several  days  before  I  recovered  the 
lost  interval,  and  weeks  before  I  could  arrange  its 
proper  sequence.  So,  when  I  awoke  in  the  far-away 
Swiss  inn,  I  was  mentally  still  standing  in  Mrs.  Axson's 
apartment  in  New  York.  In  this  sense  my  remark  was 
coherent  enough.  The  diary  records  it  triumphantly, 
though  very  badly  spelled.  I  had  intended,  I  suppose, 

238 


PIERRE    VINTON 

to  say  it  to  Lilly  Axson  over  a  liqueur  glass  after  dinner, 
when  it  would  have  sounded  possibly  cynical  and  clever. 
Instead,  on  what  was  pretty  near  to  my  death-bed,  I 
spat  it  out,  when  it  sounded  silly  and  vulgar  as  it 
really  was,  and  I  was  ashamed  when  I  read  it  and 
hope  to  forget  it.  So  much  for  that  sort  of  flip- 
pancy. 

But  I  was  not  allowed  to  make  any  such  headlong 
plunge  into  consciousness.  On  the  contrary,  no  sooner 
had  I  poked  my  head  above  the  "waters  of  oblivion" 
than  Doctor  Lebon  ducked  it  under  again  with  opiates. 
I  remember  on  the  first  occasion  a  strange-looking 
woman  in  white  giving  me  a  drink  and  nothing  more. 
Lebon  and  I  played,  according  to  the  "chart,"  this 
little  game  for  several  days,  each  emergence  on  my 
part  becoming  a  little  longer,  and  each  ducking  on  his 
part  a  little  less  complete.  Then,  too,  I  recollect  de- 
liberately playing  into  my  opponent's  hands.  I  often 
lay  for  hours  conscious  of  my  position  in  a  vague, 
dreamlike  way,  without  giving  a  sign  or  making  any 
effort  to  complete  the  consciousness.  Then  some  move- 
ment would  betray  me,  and  under  I  had  to  go  again. 
They  were  really  very  delightful,  those  stolen  moments. 
I  viewed  the  world  as  a  soul  detached  from  its  body, 

239 


PIERRE    VINTON 

an  intelligence,  dim  and  uncertain,  of  course,  but  in 
compensation,  quite  relieved  of  all  responsibility,  even 
the  responsibility  of  continuing  to  exist.  I  had  only 
one  anxiety  then — the  dread  of  completing  the  con- 
sciousness. I  suppose  I  remembered  nothing  particularly 
alluring  in  this  world  that  was  going  on  about  me,  and 
as  from  the  first  moment  of  my  consciousness,  they  had 
banished  Marcella,  or  rather  she  had  banished  her- 
self, I  saw  nothing  to  indicate  that  it  had  changed 
during  my  absence.  I  lay,  looking  at  the  strange  woman 
at  my  bedside  or  at  the  ceiling  or  out  of  the  windows 
at  the  mountains,  quite  realizing  who  I  was  and  where 
I  was,  and  rapidly  learning  how  the  combination  had 
come  about,  but  without  the  least  curiosity  in  the 
matter;  rather,  in  fact,  with  a  strong  repugnance  for 
such  information.  So,  for  a  week,  I  dwelt  in  Nirvana, 
and  then  abruptly  one  morning  I  dropped  into  Switzer- 
land. 

It  was  a  very  bright  day  out-of-doors,  and  one  of 
the  windows  was  open.  From  very  far  off  came  the 
sound  of  cow-bells.  A  white-clothed  man  was  standing 
at  the  foot  of  my  bed  and  a  white-clothed  woman  was 
bending  over  me  from  the  side  of  it.  The  man  was 
short  and  bald,  with  a  very  black  mustache.  The 

£40 


PIERRE    VINTON 

woman  had  coarse  dark  hair,  too,  but  was  tall  and  thin 
and  wore  a  rimless  pince-nez,  guarded  by  a  thin  gold 
chain  fastened  around  the  ear. 

"Mr.  Vinton,"  said  the  woman.  And  I  knew  I  was 
caught  at  last. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  am  Mr.  Vinton,"  and  the  thin, 
shaky  voice  scared  me. 

"Of  course,"  said  the  woman,  bending  still  lower 
and  arranging  the  covers  about  my  throat.  "And  you 
feel  all  right  this  morning,  don't  you  ? " 

"What  happened?"  I  asked. 

She  glanced  at  the  man  before  she  replied.  "You 
fell,"  she  explained. 

"When?" 

Again  she  glanced  at  him.  "About  a  week  ago,  but 
if  you  ask  any  more  questions  you  will  have  to  go  to 
sleep  again." 

I  knew  about  how  much  truth  there  was  in  her 
answer,  but  persisted  no  further. 

"Now,  to-day,"  she  went  on,  "you  may  lie  here 
without  going  to  sleep,  but  you  mustn't  ask  any  ques- 
tions, and  you  must  not  move.  If  you  do  either  you  will 
have  to  go  to  sleep  again."  She  had  the  patronizing  air 
of  a  mother  toward  a  child. 

241 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  place  this  is?"  I 
asked. 

She  told  me.  Then,  with  a  finger  on  her  lips,  sat  down 
beside  me  and  took  up  a  book.  The  man  in  white  tip- 
toed softly  out  of  the  room.  They  were  Doctor  Lebon 
and  Miss  Civilese  Springer,  of  Dayton,  O. 

For  two  days  I  had  nothing  better  than  to  watch 
Miss  Springer  read  a  book  and  try  to  guess  what  the 
book  was  about  from  the  expression  of  her  face.  It 
was  a  singularly  unexpressive  face,  too — dark  and 
thin  and  with  a  noticeable  mustache.  Occasionally 
Soeur  Agathe  took  her  place.  The  nun  was  short  and 
stout  and,  instead  of  reading,  slept  placidly  with  her 
hands  crossed  on  her  stomach.  On  the  whole,  the  time 
passed  slowly. 

"Now,  this  morning,"  said  Miss  Springer  on  the 
morning  of  the  third  day,  "you  may  talk  for  a  little 
while." 

"Thanks,"  I  replied. 

"But  not  to  me,"  she  added  archly. 

I  was  grateful  but  quite  unaware  of  what  she  meant. 

"Not  to  me;  to  some  one  ever  so  much  nicer  than  me." 

Apparently,  she  thought  my  intellect  permanently 
impaired.  While  she  talked  she  was  making  purpose- 

itf 


PIERRE    VINTON 

less  dabs  at  my  hair  and  the  furniture  and  the  bed- 
clothes. Finally,  with  a  finger  on  her  lips  and  an  ex- 
ceedingly arch  smile,  she  disappeared. 

It  was  a  brilliant  day.  Out  of  the  windows  I  could 
see  the  snow  in  the  sunlight  and  the  room  shone  with 
the  dazzling  reflection.  For  the  first  time  then  I  felt 
a  faint  stir  of  joy  in  the  return  to  life.  But  the  sensa- 
tion went  no  further.  Life  might  be  pleasant,  but  it 
was  not  as  yet  interesting. 

So  when  I  heard  a  door  open  softly  behind  me,  a 
footstep  in  the  room,  I  did  not  turn.  The  sunlight 
outside  was  pleasant  and  pretty.  Then  I  heard  a  sound 
— hau"  a  sob,  half  my  name.  I  turned  and  saw  her. 
She  was  standing  just  inside  the  room,  the  sunlight 
about  her  feet,  her  face  in  the  shadow.  How  worn  it  was! 
The  almost  boyish  air  of  diffidence,  that  is  so  wholly 
hers  seemed  strange  with  such  a  care-worn  woman. 

"Marcella,"  I  whispered. 

She  did  not  answer. 

"When  did  you  come?" 

"A  long  time  ago." 

Then  I  gasped.  The  astounding  nature  of  the  thing 
touched  me  at  last.  "Who  sent  for  you?" 

"Nobody.  I  just  came,"  she  answered. 
243 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"You  just  came — by  yourself?  Why?" 

"Why?"  she  repeated.  She  came  a  step  nearer,  al- 
most angrily.  Then  she  stopped  with  a  sob.  "So  that 
if  you  didn't  get  well  I  could  go  up  on  that  mountain 
and  jump  off  after  you." 

"Somebody,"  I  said,  "has  been  telling  you  lies." 

"Nobody  has  told  me  anything.  Nobody  knows  any- 
thing— except  me,  but  I  know  it  all." 

"Marcella,"  I  began,  "there's  nothing  to  know.  I 
fell,  if  that's  what  you  mean.  I  swear  I  fell.  It  was 
awfully  good  of  you  to  come — far  more." 

But  when  I  said  that  she  dropped  to  her  knees  and 
hid  her  face  in  her  hands,  sobbing. 

I  was  bandaged  like  a  mummy.  I  could  only  lift 
one  arm,  and  that  very  little,  but  I  somehow  raised 
my  shoulders  from  the  pillows,  and  I  called  to  her. 
She  came  with  a  cry  of  warning.  "You  mustn't  move. 
You  mustn't." 

The  move  was  a  little  bit  too  much.  It  made  me 
giddy.  Then,  gently,  I  was  lowered  by  her  arms  to  the 
pillows  again. 

She  held  me  so,  absolutely  helpless,  and  her  face 
was  hidden  by  my  shoulder.  I  could  only  touch  her 
hair  with  my  fingers. 

244 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"Don't  send  me  away,"  she  whispered. 

And  lying  there,  faint  and  half  blind,  feeling  her 
arms  again  about  me,  after  the  long  grief  and  pain,  I 
had  no  strength  of  any  kind,  and  taking  advantage  of 
my  own  weakness  I  whispered  back:  "Don't  leave 
me." 


245 


VII 

BY  a  charming  convention  happiness  is  recognized 
as  dwelling  in  valleys,  and  certainly  if  I  were  an 
Olympian  with  a  quantity  of  human  happiness  to  dis- 
pose of  I  should  hide  it  in  just  some  such  valley  as 
this  of  the  Engstlen  Alp.  It  is  very  small  and  very 
green  with  the  bluest  water  in  the  world,  by  the  banks 
of  which  our  weather-stained  dwelling  sits  as  incon- 
spicuously as  possible,  and  the  whole  is  set  like  a  jewel, 
like  two  jewels,  green  and  blue  among  the  snow-crowned 
cliffs.  It  is  an  unreally  beautiful  place  altogether,  and 
a  most  unreal  situation  has  developed  itself  within  it — 
a  situation  that  smacks  of  opera  bouffe — and  yet  is  an 
incontestable  reality.  I  cannot  accept  it,  and  yet  I 
would  not  alter  it  for  the  gift  of  the  stars.  It  is,  and  it 
isn't.  I  will,  and  I  won't.  Tweedledum  and  tweedledee. 
In  short — do  what  I  can,  I  can  make  neither  head  nor 
tail  of  it. 

Marcella  says  I  have  no  business  trying;  that  my  only 
246 


PIERRE    VINTON 

affair  is  to  get  well.  Perhaps  she  is  right,  and  I  endeavor 
to  follow  her  council  but  cannot  quite.  The  getting 
well  is  simple  enough  and  is  proceeding  at  a  very 
satisfactory  rate  to  every  one;  to  mine  host  and  hostess, 
for  example,  who  assure  me  of  the  fact  every  morning; 
and  to  the  servants,  and  to  the  few  guests  who  still 
remain  and  also  assure  me  of  their  satisfaction  when- 
ever we  meet.  But  the  situation !  That  does  not  pro- 
ceed at  all,  but  sticks  impregnably  in  the  same  place. 
What  is  going  to  happen  to  that,  only  an  all-wise 
Providence  and  Marcella  can  say.  We  are  doing  very 
well  under  the  circumstances,  but  the  circumstances 
are  rather  peculiar. 

The  first  stage  of  my  recovery  was  marked  by  the 
departure  of  Doctor  Lebon  and  Sister  Agathe.  They 
went  away  together.  Between  them  they  had  probably 
saved  my  life,  but  I  saw  them  go  with  unmixed  satis- 
faction. Before  leaving  Lebon  gave  me  two  pieces  of 
excellent  advice — never  while  I  lived  to  go  in  a  hot  sun 
without  a  handkerchief  in  my  hat  and  never  during 
the  same  period  to  take  any  of  Miss  Civilese  Springer's 
medicines.  Miss  Springer  remained  behind  and,  it 
seemed,  was  inclined  to  certain  drugs  which  French 
science  holds  in  contempt. 

247 


PIERRE    VINTON 

To  Miss  Springer  also  I  largely  owe  my  present 
existence;  nevertheless,  she  was  a  nuisance.  To  begin 
with,  Marcella  disliked  her;  and,  besides,  she  held 
prominent  religious  views.  I  forget  their  nature;  it  was 
their  intensity  I  found  unpleasant.  She  was  a  Buddhist 
or  something  of  the  sort,  and  I  like  Christians  about 
me  when  I  am  not  feeling  well.  Buddhism  and  polo 
and  terrapin  are  the  recreations  of  health.  Still  her 
departure  was  not  as  simple  a  matter  as  was  that  of 
the  other  two,  and  this  was  because  of  the  before- 
mentioned  situation. 

At  the  time  there  were,  unquestionably,  a  great 
many  things  which  I  was  obliged  to  say  to  Marcella, 
and  a  similar  number  of  things  which  she  was  obliged 
to  say  to  me.  Yet  as  day  followed  day  in  this  lovely 
little  valley  with  the  "pot  of  blue  ink"  in  the  middle 
of  it  and  snowy  summits  all  about  it,  we  never  said 
them.  We  came  very  close  at  times,  but  always  between 
our  last  words  and  the  actual  beginning  intervened  a 
silence,  a  queer  eerie  silence  that  was  the  end  of  it. 
We  came  up  to  the  very  edge  of  that  silence  which 
hung  like  a  gulf  between  us  and  the  highly  important 
conversations  and  there  we  stopped.  Time  and  again 
we  got  that  far,  but  we  never  got  any  further.  Perhaps 

£48 


PIERRE    VINTON 

it  was  because  the  valley  was  so  lovely,  the  lake  so 
blue  in  it,  the  snow-capped  peaks  so  exquisite  a  frame 
for  it,  the  days  so  calmly  pure,  life  so  full  of  peace  and 
content  and  hope  that  we  hated  to  disturb  so  much 
loveliness  by  any  talk  of  hideous  and  half-forgotten 
things.  They  were  all  ultramontane  things,  anyway; 
and  to  me  at  Engstlen  Alp  what  is  ultramontane  is 
practically  beyond  my  imagination,  too.  Occasionally 
letters  come  and  Marcella  reads  me  bits  of  them,  but 
I  never  listen  very  long. 

So  we  drifted  on  in  the  rudderless  boat  of  content, 
occasionally  touching  a  sand-bar  of  silence  but  never 
sticking  very  long,  until  Miss  Springer's  assistance 
was  palpably  superfluous.  It  was  considered  so  when  I 
could  put  on  my  trousers  unassisted.  Before  that  I 
felt  a  certain  moral  need  of  Miss  Springer's  presence 
in  the  hotel;  but  when  I  stood  erect,  a  presentably 
clothed  man,  made  so  by  my  own  efforts,  I  felt  that 
Miss  Springer's  day  was  done.  I  told  her  so.  She  agreed 
with  me.  The  actual  leave-taking  alone  remained.  But 
it  was  just  here  that  the  weakness  of  Marcella's  and 
my  position  became  apparent. 

Then  I  recognized  that  I  must  to  a  certain  degree 
break  througk  one  of  those  queer  silences.  I  do  not 

249 


PIERRE    VINTON 

know  that  I  should  ever  have  had  courage  for  the 
plunge  had  it  not  been  for  Miss  Springer's  salary. 
Theretofore  all  such  matters  had  been  in  the  care  of 
Marcella,  but  now  that  I  could  make  my  toilet,  it 
was  manifest  that  I  could  sign  my  checks.  So,  sitting 
up  in  bed,  on  the  night  before  Miss  Springer's  depar- 
ture I  wrote  out  a  check.  A  sense  of  complete  mas- 
culinity pervaded  my  soul  as  I  flourished  the  signature. 
A  man  who  can  put  on  his  own  trousers  and  sign  a 
check  can  do  anything.  I  took  a  deep  breath  and  sat 
erect. 

"My  dear  Marcella,"  I  began. 

"Are  you  writing  me  a  letter?"  asked  Marcella. 
She  was  drying  the  check  over  a  candle  and  had  her 
back  to  me. 

"No.  I  am  talking  to  you." 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  She  turned  and  began  to  blow 
on  the  check  instead.  Thus,  face  to  face,  my  courage 
fled.  I  grasped  at  it  desperately. 

"Don't  you  realize  that  we  are  not  married?"  I 
cried. 

She  looked  at  me  and  giggled.  "Have  you  just 
thought  of  that?"  she  asked. 

"Have  you  ever  thought  of  it?"  I  asked. 
250 


PIERRE    VINTON 

"I  thought  of  it  the  very  first  minute  I  came  in  this 
house." 

"Well,  what  did  you  do?" 

"I  didn't  do  anything.  I  didn't  have  to.  Of  course, 
every  one  thought  we  were." 

"That,"  I  answered,  "doesn't  alter  the  fact  that  we 
are  not." 

"Oh,  doesn't  it?"  said  Marcella.  "Then  what  are 
you  going  to  do  ?  " 

"We  must  get  married." 

She  put  down  the  check  and  sat  down  on  my  bed. 
"Now  listen,  Peter.  Let  me  explain  and  then  go  to 
sleep,  for  you  mustn't  get  excited.  In  the  first  place 
we  can't  get  married  here,  because  if  we  did  naturally 
everybody  would  know  we  hadn't  been  before.  I 
couldn't  face  'em  then  to  save  my  life.  It  would  be 
terrible.  Think  of  it.  They  might  turn  me  out.  I  don't 
know  what  they  might  not  do.  Well,  in  the  second 
place,  you  can't  go  away  to  get  married  anywhere  else. 
It  would  probably  kill  you  to  try.  Now,  there  isn't 
any  third  course.  So  we  can't  do  anything  except  go  on 
as  we  are.  Now,  if  I  put  out  the  light  will  you  try  to  go 
to  sleep?" 

"Just  a  moment,"  I  put  in.  "There  is  a  third  course. 
251 


PIERRE    VINTON 

We  can  tell  Miss  Springer  and  make  her  stay.  *  Chap- 
eron,' you  see." 

Marcella  hesitated.  Then  she  blushed.  "Oh,  Peter!" 
she  said,  "I  couldn't." 

And  for  my  part  I  don't  see  very  well  how  she 
could.  So  there  the  matter  rested,  and  the  next  morn- 
ing Miss  Springer  left  us.  From  my  chair  I  saw  her 
finally  vanish  beyond  the  hills.  There,  I  thought,  goes 
our  last  link  with  respectability.  I  looked  at  Marcella. 
She  was  crocheting. 

It  is  true  that  the  situation  is  largely  of  her  making. 

When  I  had  been  identified  at  the  hotel  as  Mr. 
Vinton  and  it  was  announced  that  Mrs.  Vinton  was 
coming,  the  implication  was  natural.  The  situation 
demanded  a  female  relation  of  some  sort,  preferably  a 
wife.  Thus,  when  Marcella  arrived  the  situation  might 
be  said  to  have  been  created;  it  only  remained  for  her 
to  step  into  it.  This  she  did,  and  in  this  way,  though 
she  may  not  have  created  it,  at  any  rate  she  completed 
it.  Therefore  her  nonchalance  when  face  to  face  with  it 
amazes  me.  It  makes  me  quake  with  apprehension  of 
the  day  when  the  guidance  of  this  world  will  be  put 
into  the  hands  of  her  sex. 

Discussion  of  any  sort  is  useless  in  the  circumstances. 
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PIERRE    VINTON 

Thus  we  are  sitting  here  on  the  porch,  looking  over 
the  valley.  We  are  waiting  for  the  sounds  of  the  cattle- 
bells  as  they  are  driven  down  for  the  night.  Marcella 
has  a  sewing-basket,  I  a  writing-pad,  a  pack  of  cards, 
a  book — any  of  the  consolations  of  convalescence.  She 
glances  up  from  her  work  and  catches  me  looking  at  her. 

"What  are  you  thinking  of?"  asks  she. 

"  I  was  wondering  how  I  ever  got  you  back. " 

"Don't  you  know?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

She  bent  lower  over  her  sewing.  "Neither  do  I," 
she  answered.  "Only  when  Courty  showed  me  the  cable 
it  was  like  somebody  had  tied  a  string  around  me  and 
was  pulling." 

"It  was  a  pretty  long  string,"  I  suggested. 

"It  was  pretty  strong,  too,"  she  said. 

"What  was  it  made  of,  Marcella?" 

Marcella  dropped  her  sewing,  and  looked  up  at  the 
cows.  "Oh!"  she  said  slowly,  "it  was  the  same  old 
string." 

Undoubtedly  it  was,  as  she  said,  a  pretty  strong 
string.  I  thought  of  how  many  people  had  taken  a 
hack  at  it;  how  I  had  gnawed  at  it,  and  she  too,  and  the 
Supreme  Bench. 

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PIERRE    VINTON 

Marcella  interrupted  my  reminiscences.  "Pierre," 
she  said,  "there  can't  be  real  divorce.  There's  release, 
but  there  isn't  any  such  thing  as  divorce." 

"Marcella,"  I  answered,  "don't  let's  talk  about  such 
disagreeable  subjects." 

And  that  is  the  nearest  we  have  ever  come  to  that 
tremendous  conversation  which  should  certainly  have 
taken  place  between  us. 

Meanwhile  our  condition  causes,  I  am  led  to  be- 
lieve, some  uneasiness  to  the  ultramontanes.  Brown's 
letters  arrive  by  every  post.  At  first  they  were  reticent. 
Lately  they  have  become  the  trumpet-calls  of  ortho- 
doxy. Finally,  in  desperation,  he  writes:  "You  see,  Old 
Top,  it's  all  right  for  you  and  for  me  and  for  every- 
body that  has  any  sense,  but  if  it  were  to  get  out  it 
would  be  all-fired  bad  for  Business."  I  made  Marcella 
read  that  twice.  In  that  sentence  I  read  the  birth  an- 
nouncement of  a  Courtland  Brown  2d,  whom  as  yet 
I  have  never  seen:  a  self-respecting  young  American, 
with  his  weather-eye  on  "business."  Accompanying 
this  was  a  P.  S.:  "Habliston  begs  pardon,  but  may 
he  send  his  respects  to  Miss  Marcella?"  Whereat  Mar- 
cella almost  cries. 

Mrs.  Axson  is  allied  with  Brown.  She  has  taken  a 
IM 


PIERRE    VINTON 

house  at  Auteuil  for  the  autumn,  and  feels  sure  that 
I  would  convalesce  more  quickly  and  surely  there 
than  here.  Marcella  writes  that  I  shall  not  stir  until 
Haussmann  gives  the  word.  She  added:  "Anyhow  we 
are  in  no  condition  to  pay  visits."  Whereupon  Mrs. 
Axson  must  be  told  everything,  and  in  return  we  get  a 
telegram : 

"Pour  1'amour  de  Mike,  soyez  raisonable. 

"LILLY." 

These  are  things  we  hear.  What  is  being  said,  whis- 
pered, thought,  imagined,  that  we  do  not  hear,  we 
sometimes  guess  at — sometimes,  not  frequently.  At 
such  times  Marcella  sighs  patiently  and  says  I  am  to 
blame  for  falling  in  such  an  inaccessible  place.  I  have 
no  fault  to  find  with  the  place.  It  is  vastly  the  pleas- 
antest  place  I  have  dwelt  in  for  many  years,  and  I 
could  be  quite  content  to  dwell  here  forever,  while 
the  heathen  rage  beyond  the  mountains.  About  this 
rude  little  settlement  in  the  lonely,  beautiful  valley  we 
live  by  the  sun,  and  when  that  leaves  us  in  the  evening 
we  linger  out  here  on  the  porch  until  the  high  pastur- 
ing cattle  come  tinkling  down  from  the  heights  and 

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PIERRE    VINTON 

are  housed  for  the  night.  Then,  leaning  on  her  arm,  I 
am  led  within.  Such  are  the  faces  of  the  uncounted 
days.  Of  what  queer  stuff  does  Happiness  cut  its 
clothes ! 

Once,  in  the  night,  I  woke  suddenly  from  a  dream 
of  days  that  are  past  and  dead  now,  but  the  spell 
of  the  dream  was  strong  upon  me.  It  was  only  the 
touch  of  another's  hand  as  it  lay  in  mine  while  she 
slept  that  brought  back  the  present.  Through  the  un- 
curtained window  a  single  star  was  shining  cold  and 
pale  through  the  moonlight  above  a  snow-capped  peak. 
Had  I  touched  coarsely  or  rudely  the  divine  gift  of  Love 
that  placed  that  hand  so  trustingly  in  mine,  or  had  I 
only  stripped  it  of  the  convenient  wrappings  of  custom 
and  laid  bare  the  living  miracle  within? 

The  touch  of  her  hand,  as  she  stirred  in  her  dream, 
and  I  knew  and  slept  in  peace. 


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